Well, it happened.  Despite all my careful planning and preparation, we had a huge snow storm in the US last week that basically crippled air travel across the country for 72 hours.  I thought I was safe because a) we didn't get any snow and b) the snow happened 3 days before I was scheduled to leave for my trip to see my parents.  I know.  What was I thinking?  All those planes had to come from somewhere and apparently they came from the snowy cities.  Here were some of the things I did to get over the hurdle of being delayed at the airport.

• Call ahead or check out the schedule online.  I don't know why I am even writing this because I checked just before leaving my house and arrived at the airport 15 minutes later to find that my flight was delayed an hour.  My preparation paid off, however, and because I checked my bags at the curb, I knew the flight was delayed an hour even BEFORE Derek drove away.  Ethan and I hopped back in the truck and headed off to the local mall for a quick lunch with Dad before our flight.  I then called the 800 number for the airline to get any updates.  There weren't any so I rushed back not knowing that my flight would be delayed yet another 2 hours.  At least we had that nice extra hour with Dad. 
  
• Throw the rules out the window.  This might freak some of the safety crowd out a little, but I may have propped Ethan on the top of my roller bag facing the handles, instructed him to wrap his arms and legs around the handles, wrapped my sweater around his waist and the handles and then let him ride as I walked briskly through the terminal to the gate to the plane that the monitor was telling me was leaving in 5 minutes but was never really there.  I knew the bag was rated to carry a 40 pound bag on the handles and I knew my little guy would follow the instructions to the letter if he felt like what he was doing was really dangerous.  Our only real danger was his belly laughter making him shake so hard that he would fall off.  He did not and had the time of his life.  I also heard lots of belly laughter from travelers who had been stuck in the airport and just needed to see a little tow-headed child laughing and hanging on for a 3-ticket ride at the fair.
• Buy a milkshake.  From personal experience, buy two because your child won't share with you.  Ethan sat on a chair for 17 minutes and sucked the life of that milkshake out of the straw.  I asked nicely for a sip and he yelled, "NO!"  Since he wasn't stealing other people's roller bags or going through anyone's purse looking for pens, I let his selfishness slide.
  
• Don't be embarrassed.  Sure, I didn't want Ethan to take his shoes and socks off and then put his dirty socks in the nice lady's purse sitting across from us but we had been waiting for 3 hours.  Let's be honest.  He is 21 months old.  It's not like he ran a marathon and then put his socks in her bag.  She laughed and showed me a picture of her daughter.  Remember that lots of people have kids and if your kid is freaking out because you have just been waiting so long, most people will understand and have even been there before.  I make it my policy to apologize because it is the polite thing to do.  You really shouldn't have to because your child is just being a child, but it at least gives off the feel like you don't want your child to be a nuisance.
• Keep your frustration to minimum.  The more upset I got at the bad service and lack of information, the more cranked up Ethan got.  And when I burst into tears, it got downright ugly.  He knew that Mom was frustrated and then he got more frustrated.  But the reality is, no one wants to get on a broken plane so accept the things you cannot change.  Even though I didn't have the energy to chase him around like he wanted to be chased, I could have done more to keep the situation calm.  I did break out my bag of tricks that I had been saving for the plane and actually used them all up.  It worked out though because Ethan was so exhausted by the time we got on the plane that he slept from takeoff to parking at the gate. 
  

With the increase of people traveling during the holidays, up go your chances of having delays.  Here are just a few ideas to help you keep your sanity when you have no place to go.  Good luck.