I decided to use the time to teach my kids how to navigate an airport. We rolled our luggage into the main terminal and I handed them a piece of paper with our flight details. "Here," I said. "You figure it out."
At first my kids ages 7 and 9 gave me a baffled look—and then they got mad. "Mooommm! This isn't fair! We're just kids! We can't figure this out."
But they quickly realized that I wasn't going to help so they started reading the piece of paper. They figured out we were flying Southwest Airlines and found the check-in counter, but it took a lot of sign reading and frustration to figure out which line we needed to stand in.
Once we standing in front of the check-in computer their attitude changed. Pressing the buttons on the computer and following the prompts was fun (though of course they fought over who could work the computer).
Boarding passes in hand, they read the tickets to figure out which gate we were leaving from and directed us to the correct security check-in. They read the signs in line and got out my laptop and told me to take my shoes off. The tables were turning and they realized that bossing mom around was fun.
Soon we were sitting at our gate, with more time to spare.
"Ok, you have $35 to cover lunch for the three of us. Figure it out!"
My daughter wanted pizza and my son wanted us all to go to a sit-down Mexican restaurant. My 9-year-old daughter walked into the restaurant and asked a waiter if she could bring a slice of pizza into the restaurant and eat with her mom and brother.
Soon we were snacking on chips and salsa and my daughter was enjoying her pizza. My son ordered us a taco plate to share to so we made sure to stick within our budget. But mainly they wanted to make sure we had money leftover for ice cream. They had definitely earned it.
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