I flew with my three girls on Tuesday. From Salt Lake City to Albuquerque, and from Albuquerque to Tampa. It started out not so bad. Spot was, as usual, quite content. Sally was okay except when complaining that her younger (by 3 1/2 years!) sister was tormenting her. Susan was … well, Susan was Susan. Picture middle child, terrible twos, left-handed-spawn-of-Satan (just kidding on the Satan part; the left-handedness is getting pretty certain).
I knew it was bad when I started lusting after the In Touch magazine of a passenger to my left (no jealousy over the Sudoku also to my left — I wasn’t that far gone).
An olderish gentleman (old enough to know better, young enough to not require complete old-age-pandering) sitting in front of Sally kept turning around and glaring at me. I made eye contact the first couple of times, because, you know, you’re on a plane and sort of in this communal experience. Maybe the guy has a question, maybe you can help. But after a couple encounters with his sour, disapproving glare, I looked elsewhere. He said, “Ma’am, you’re going to have to get those children to stop kicking our seats.”
Dude, if you think that is kicking…
We sat on the tarmac an extra hour in Albuquerque for refueling. I was saving the life-giving waters of the portable DVD player for hour three, and while the girls colored and Spot gnawed intermittently, mostly-asleep at my breast, I managed to read 86 pages of Orson Scott Card’s Empire. The noise and movement Nazi in front of Sally was particularly upset by Susan’s exploration of large crayon stippling. Apparently he isn’t much of an art appreciator. BIG surprise.
As we waited to leave the plane, several (okay, at least two separate) passengers complimented me on how well-behaved my kids were. So there.
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Oh boy. My sister-in-law had a really ornery guy on their last flight who was very vocal about not liking her kids’ commotion. She stood up to him really well–she’s good at that. Me, I would have burst into tears and felt like giving up. What a woman to do that trip by yourself!
I have flown with Will by myself about eight times. I hate it. The last time I fly was at Christmas time and it was the first time Mike had flown with me since we had kids. It was really nice for me (except that the six hour flight turned into a 13 hour flight). Mike hated it though. Will threw up all over him and he said we would never fly again. So, we are driving the 20 hours to Utah. Ugh. It’s too expensive to fly now that Will is two anyway.
The last time I flew, Max was 16 months old. I had a similar experience, a nasty older couple in front, and great other people all around that continously complimented Max’s good nature. That one person, though, made the experience so distressing that I swore I would never fly with a toddler again. Under 6 months yes, over 4 yes, but nowhere in between. I really think there should be a families only airline, with play areas at the gates and fair notice that no anti-fmaily behavior will be tolerated.