55 Easy Steps to Traveling With Twins

1. Wash, dry and fold all human and baby clothes the day before your trip.
2. Pack one carry-on bag for the babies containing 4 sleepers, 8 outfits and onesies, 2 blankies, 2 types of diapers (overnights and daytime), 1 Fisher Price Rainforest Waterfall Soother, baby bottles, formula, and equipment.
3. Pack one carry-on bag for the humans containing loungwear, sleepwear, churchwear, and high school reunion wear.
4. Pack one diaper-backpack-bag full until the zipper is busting, including bottles for the airplane, diapers, wipes, toys, backup clothing, burpcloths, bibs, 1 Snugli carrier, 1 Babybjorn carrier, a digital camera and the contents of my former purse.
5. Pack one breast pump and accouterments. 
6. Prepare the 'traveling' (read: secondhand) carseats with the JJ Cole Bundle Me covers and linky toys.
7. Repair a tear in one of the Bundle Me's with your oh so handy sewing kit.
8. Feed the babies, change them into size 3 overnight diapers for the long flight in hopes you won't have to change them. 
9. Put the cute airplane sleepers on the boys because it's just adorable to fly in them.  Wait, Matthew outgrew his since you flew 2 weeks ago, so
10. Find Matthew a sleeper that a)fits b)is not dirty in the hamper and c)is not already packed.
11.  Husband opens up suitcase, tells you all the things you forgot to pack for him and re-packs his side of the suitcase.
12. Load aforementioned equipment into minivan; don't forget the stroller!  Or the babies.
13. Put out the garbage can because tomorrow is garbage day.
14. Back out over the garbage can.
15. Eat your Culver's butterburger dinner at 70 mph on your way to the airport, thanking God that the babies are quiet.
16. Wait patiently in the airport with a double stroller and its babies, a breast pump, 2 suitcases and a backpack-diaper bag while hubby parks the van. 
17.  Take babies out of carseats and insert them into the Babybjorn and Snugni before heading toward security checkpoint.
18.  Babies dazzle the security checkpoint (female) staff while mom and dad unload all aforementioned equipment onto the x-ray belt.  Don't forget to take off your shoes (thank you God that I remembered to wear slip on shoes this time), take out your 1 quart ziploc bag (containing hand sanitizer, 2 oz. emergency formula bottles, antibiotic baby eye drops, baby Tylenol, and desitin, among other things) and claim your 2 8 oz babas for dinner.
19.  Put everything back together again on the other side of security, but decide to keep the babies in the carriers for some odd reason.
20. Stop at Starbucks and try to explain to the person who speaks English as a second language that no, you don't need 2 cups stacked together with hot water, you need 2 cups with hot water in each of them.  Lady sees mom walk up behind dad with the second baby and gets it.
21.  Be nice to the paying Starbucks customer who has 11 year old twin girls, shows you their picture, and tells you they will start ganging up on you in 3 years. 
22.  See that the tram is not working.  Your gate is at the end of A gates at MSP (read: darn near a mile away). 
23.  Walk your tiny little sideshow circus all the way to your gate, trying not to spill the hot water every time you get on and off the 10 or so moving sidewalks.
24. Upon reaching your gate, warm up the bottles in the Starbucks cups while you get the boys out of the carriers, find the bottles and burp cloths, realize you put the wrong nipples on the bottles, change the nipples without spilling anything (thank you, God!) and feed your babies.
25.  Try not to make a scene when Nathan belches like a linebacker in the middle (literally!) of the gate area.
26. Snap Nathan into his carseat, humans take turns going to the bathroom, load up all of your junk back into the diaperbag, dump out the still-hot Starbucks water, and wait for boarding.
27. Learn that you're only getting 3 seats on the plane, so load Matthew back into the Babybjorn, take the Bundle Me, toys, and headrest off of carseat so you can gate-check it with the stroller.
28.  Take your seats in the very last row on the airplane and thank God again that the boys are still pretty happy, considering it's now past their bedtime.
29. Small talk with the nice man next to you who is a father of 5 and seems to enjoy baby Matthew, who has challenged our neighbor to a staring contest.
30.  Dad tries entertaining Nathan who's sick of his carseat while Mom is glad that Matthew has fallen asleep while we wait for takeoff.
31.  Matthew wakes up as soon as we're at cruising altitude because people begin using the bathroom located just 18 inches away.
32.  Matthew is wet.  He leaked.  Change Matthew in the smallest bathroom designed by man; thank goodness it's so close!
33.  "Is Nathan poopy?"  sniff Nathan's butt because husband just lifted it to your face.  Sniff. GAG!  Yes.
34.  Daddy changes Nathan in the tiniest bathroom ever.
35.  Begin descent.  And turbulence.  Mom feels nauseaous for the next 30 minutes.
36.  Whew, we made it.  Say goodbye to the nice flight attendant who has twin granddaughters.  (See, everyone has twins!)
37. Pick up the stroller at the gate and load Nathan (in carseat, remember) into it.
38.  Ask gate agent, where is our gate-checked carseat?
39. Go to baggage claim like agent suggested, collect 2 bags but no carseat.
40. Call mom (our ride), load crying Nathan into backseat, 2 bags, 1 backpack, 1 pump, and one stroller (minus one screw...did I forget to mention it was broken at the gate?) into the trunk.
41.  Wait with Matthew (still in the Babybjorn on my chest) in the front seat while Steve runs around the airport trying to find our carseat.
42.  Answer my cell phone...no, I don't know where the claim ticket is.  Give Matthew to mom, in the driver's seat, and rifle through the back pack looking for the claim ticket.  Call Steve.  No ticket, meaning we have no proof that we ever checked the carseat.
43. Wait some more, thinking, gosh, I'm glad we used our traveling carseats today.
44. Answer my cell phone.  It's a Graco car seat.  Dang, I hear my husband say.
45.  Steve arrives with a brand new Evenflo carseat and base.  The agent who helped him was a former coworker who gave him a replacement seat.  Thank God again for angels in disguise, because he didn't have to do this for us since we were technically not paying customers.
46.  In the rain, take out old base and try to install new base.
47. Give up and just buckle Matthew into the new seat.  What's wrong with these stupid straps?  We need to adjust them to fit him.  Buckle the seat into the car with the shoulder belt.
48.  Steve begins the long drive to Auburn from the Flint airport. What?  I didn't tell you?  No, of course we couldn't get seats on the Saginaw flight. 
49.  Whew, that's done.
50. Wait, no it's not. Change babies into clean diapers and put them down to sleep.
51. Matthew falls straight to sleep in his pack and play in his new room
52.  Nathan is fussing, crying, escalating to screaming.  It's 12:30am.
53. Nathan has pooped again.  Change him again.
54.  Still crying at 1 am, so nurse him to sleep. 
55. The end.