Trip Factoid #7: The last person on the plane--the one who gets on just before the doors close and holds up the flight attendant while he leisurely folds and stows away his jacket--is always the passenger in the biggest hurry to be first off the plane.

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I spent part of the morning on the computer at Lori's house, working on her email addressbook and introducing her to to the wonders of eBay. My sister has a beautiful house, furnished in large part by her finds at antique stores and secondhand shops. My brother-in-law Rich may never forgive me for helping Lori register as an eBay user.

On the way to the Portland airport, we stopped for a late breakfast at Big G's again. Near the register there were a bunch of baked goods for sale: mammoth cookies, gigantic whoopie pies, and sticky buns as big as dessert plates. I bought a chocolate chip cookie and an M&M cookie for Tab and the boys.

My flight was a half hour late in boarding. I watched with mounting trepidation as the waiting area filled with small children and their weary parents, pushing strollers and lugging car seats. U.S. Airways flight 803 to Philadelphia should have been renamed "The Pied Piper Express." A man sitting next to me sighed. "There are too many little kids on this flight. And I was planning on getting some shuteye."

I shrugged and nodded sympathetically. Actually, I have a much higher level of tolerance for crying children on airplanes than I had before becoming a parent myself. The children on this flight were not very noisy, fortunately. Even the little boy in the seat in front of me slept most of the way.

Flights were backed up at Philly, and we were placed in a holding pattern for nearly a half hour. So we were an hour late getting in; many of my fellow passengers missed their connecting flights.

I was expecting to see Tab and Daniel waiting for me, but the first familiar face I spotted was Matthew's. Tab and his mother had brought all three boys to the airport to meet me. I received the loudest and most exuberant greeting of any of the disembarking passengers. "Mama! Mama!" the boys called excitedly, jumping up and down, to the amusement of the others waiting at the gate.

I kissed each one and then wrapped them up in a big bear hug. "I missed you so much, Mama," said Stephen, plaintively.

"I missed you, too, honey. I missed you all."

Tab had taken the three boys for haircuts at Top Road while I was gone. As always, the twins look older, less like babies, with shorter hair.

The boys fought over who got to hold my hand as we walked through the airline terminal. That's the problem with having three kids and only two hands. But it's wonderful to be so wanted.

And yet. And yet. I love having a little time of freedom in which I am not yelling and tripping over kids' toys and breaking up their fights. Maybe I won't have to wait a year for my next solo trip to Maine. Last December, mom, Lori and her daughter Alex, Monica and her daughter Mollie, and Susannah and her daughter Emily, spent a weekend in Portland, Christmas shopping. They want to make it an annual mother-daughter tradition and have invited me to join them. I laughingly asked if I'd be allowed, since I don't have a daughter of my own. "I'll bring you as my daughter," answered Mom.

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