From Northern Virginia to Heathrow: Our Pre-Flight Ritual With Three Kids

Ten-plus Heathrow runs in, here is exactly how we get the Lawson family from our Falls Church kitchen to a 6:45pm Dulles departure without anyone crying — including me.

By Sarah Lawson·

I have done the Northern Virginia to Heathrow run more times than I can count at this point — Tom and I worked it out the other night and we are pushing fifteen years of these flights, with the kids in tow for nearly a decade of them. Jack was a baby on his first one. Now he is eleven and packs his own carry-on, badly, and I redo it after he goes to bed.

I am not a glamorous traveller. I am an organised one. There is a difference, and after this many transatlantic crossings I have stopped pretending the night before a long-haul is anything other than a quiet operation involving colour-coded cubes, a Costco rotisserie chicken for dinner, and three children who are absolutely going to forget something. Here is the ritual, more or less unchanged since the twins were four.

IAD vs DCA: the airport calculus

This is the first decision and honestly the most consequential. We live in Falls Church, which puts us roughly equidistant between Reagan and Dulles in theory, but the answer is almost always Dulles. Heathrow direct out of IAD is the move. United and Virgin both fly it, the timings are forgiving — we can leave the house at 3pm for a 6:45pm departure and still be at the gate eating overpriced pretzels before boarding — and we sleep on the plane and land in London for breakfast.

DCA is occasionally tempting because it is closer and we can do it without the Toll Road, but a connection through Newark or JFK with three kids and a bag full of contraband snacks is not a saving. It is a tax. We did it once when miles forced our hand, and Olivia threw up on the connection. Never again.

The Tysons-to-Dulles drive timing

If you live anywhere in the Tysons Corner / Falls Church / McLean strip, here is the truth about getting to Dulles. The drive is twenty-five minutes at 2pm and an hour and ten minutes at 5pm. We aim to be loaded in the car by 3pm sharp for any flight after 6pm. Tom drives, I sit in the passenger seat with the passport folder on my lap and a list on my phone, and we talk through what got forgotten in the kitchen so we can text the neighbour to grab Henry's reading glasses off the counter.

The colour-coded packing cubes

I am evangelical about these and I will not apologise. Each kid has a colour. Each cube within their colour does one job.

  • Jack — green cubes. One for tops, one for bottoms, one for socks and pants, one for swim/extra layer. He is eleven and the system has finally clicked, mostly because I told him if he can pack his own cubes he gets to choose his airport breakfast.
  • Olivia — purple cubes. Same four-cube system. She also gets a small zip pouch for hair things, because Olivia has Opinions about hair and we are not going to Manchester without the lavender scrunchie.
  • Henry — orange cubes. Henry's are always the neatest. He folds. I do not know where he got it from, certainly not from Tom.

The cubes go into one shared check bag for the kids. Tom and I share a bag. That is two checked bags total for five people on a ten-day trip and I am quietly very pleased with us about that.

The airport breakfast routine (yes, breakfast, on a 6:45pm flight)

I know. Bear with me. We eat a real meal at home around 4pm — usually a Costco rotisserie chicken because I am not cooking anything I will then have to clean up — and then at the airport, after security, we do what the kids call "airport breakfast." It is not breakfast. It is the small ritual of each kid choosing one snack-meal item from the food court that they would never get on a normal Tuesday. Jack picks Auntie Anne's. Olivia picks a bagel. Henry picks the same plain pretzel every single time, because Henry knows what Henry likes.

This is not optimised eating. This is psychology. By the time we board they have had a small treat, used the toilet twice each, and walked the concourse enough to be tired-not-wired. Tom and I share a beer at the bar near the United gates. It costs sixteen dollars. It is worth every cent.

What each kid carries on

This is sacred. Anything that makes the seven hours bearable goes in the personal bag, and it is the same kit every trip:

  • Jack: his Moleskine, a tin of Faber-Castell pencils, his iPad with one downloaded film, a refillable water bottle, and a hoodie. Florence changed him last summer and now he sketches the seatback in front of him like he is in the Uffizi. I let him.
  • Olivia: her BTS earphones (the over-ear ones, non-negotiable), her iPad loaded with the Bangtan Bomb backlog, a snack pouch, and a small notebook for what she calls "plane choreography" which is a worry I will deal with later.
  • Henry: a Lego Architecture set in a zip pouch (he builds it on the tray table in the dark, somehow), a paperback, his water bottle, and the same green dinosaur he has had since he was three. I do not point out the dinosaur. The dinosaur is not for discussion.

The night-before list

I keep this in the Notes app and Tom and I tick it off together after the kids are in bed:

  • Passports in the folder, folder in my handbag, handbag by the door
  • Five reusable water bottles empty, in carry-ons
  • Phone chargers and the one universal UK adapter I have lost and replaced four times
  • Snacks: pretzels, two apples, the cheese sticks Henry likes
  • Tom's mum texted with our arrival time for the third time because she will worry regardless
  • Neighbour has the key, the bins are out, the thermostat is at 62

The honest part

None of this makes the flight short. None of it makes the seven-hour overnight in economy actually pleasant. What it does is reduce the number of small fires I have to put out at 35,000 feet, which is the only goal a mum of three should have on a transatlantic. I do not aim for joy on the plane. I aim for nobody crying, including me, and we land at Heathrow Terminal 3 most years with all five passports, all five children, and all the cubes accounted for. That is the win.

Tom always says the trip starts when we taxi onto the runway and I always say it starts when the cubes are zipped, and we are both right. The ritual is the trip. By the time we are eating a proper bacon sandwich at Heathrow on the other side, the kids in their crumpled hoodies and Tom on the phone to his mum to confirm the train, the journey has already done its job. Same time next year, probably. Probably sooner.