A couple of months ago I decided I needed a vacation so I bought a plane ticket to go home and see my parents in New York; a plane ticket with a very distinctive "Infant in arms" stamped across it. Despite my joy at seeing my family, I dreaded the day I would get on a plane with my very active, 17-month-old toddler, forced to sit in my lap, with very little room to maneuver, for 2 straight hours. I dutifully researched and prepared for this trip, collecting snacks and toys that would be new to my daughter: a slinky, stickers, matchbox cars, a pack of cards with pictures and numbers on them, color wonder markers, post-it-notes, some books, and a family photo album. The one thing I did NOT try, was benadryl or any other sort of medication, for either of us. And this is how things went:
As we got settled in for the outbound flight, I became encouraged when no one claimed any of the other 2 seats in our row. As it turned out, we ended up with the entire row to ourselves. This was a huge blessing because I did not realize how sensitive my stomach has become. I held Lydia on my lap, of course, during take-off, and so with the plane bouncing up and down through turbulence and Lydia jumping and wiggling all over me, I nearly puked. In fact, I had to put her in the seat next to me and do breathing exercises for a good 20 minutes and drink some ginger-ale to completely settle my stomach. Who knew that would happen? Not me. Meanwhile, Lydia is poking her head in between two of the seats checking out the folks sitting behind us. Thankfully they are asleep and don't mind too much. There's an 8-month-old little boy sitting with his mom in the row in front of us, and Lydia plays peek-a-boo with him, but quickly becomes bored with that. She spends about 2 minutes taking the slinkies out of the box and trying to stuff them back in again. I show her the cars and she scrapes them sideways along the tray-table, making a really loud annoying noise. After about 30 seconds of that, I put the cars away and pull out the photo album. She spends about a minute looking at the pictures and then wants something else to do. We pull out a book. That gets us through the next minute and then she's Little Miss Wiggly again. I try the slinkies again, but she wants to get down. I pull out the post-it notes. "Look, Lydia, see how they stick??" She has fun with the post-it notes for about 30 seconds and then is ready for something new. Did I mention that I purposely scheduled the flight during naptime so that she would hopefully sleep? Yep, no chance of that. I decided to try walking in the aisles with her. But no sooner do I put her down than she tries to take off running. I snatch at her and she trips and falls flat on her face, wailing away. I pick her up and sit her and my red face back down. We try "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "The Wheels on the Bus" and a few other songs. Then we play "peek-a-boo" again with the little boy in front of us. Lydia steals his toy, and I make her give it back. Then she's looking at the people sitting behind us again ... Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Finally we are starting our descent and I pull out the stickers and some paper. She is fascinated because the stickers are "Blues Clues" and so she keeps saying "doggie" over and over again. I also have some animal stickers and this miraculously keeps her occupied until we are on the ground.
The return trip was better in some ways, and worse in others. I took some Dramamine so I didn't have any issues with nausea, but there was not a single empty seat in the whole airplane. In fact, I don't remember much of this leg of the trip. I think I have blocked it from my memory. One thing I do remember is the sweet angelic young woman whom we sat next to. Bless her heart for being so understanding! I heard the middle-aged couple sitting in front of me grumbling right after I sat down and muttering something about "should be a designated section ..." Uhm, hello! We are in the back of the plane. That kind-of IS the designated kids section. Anyway, do you expect peace and quiet when you are sitting right next to the propeller? Oh well, I couldn't blame them really. I don't like it when people kick my seat either. Lydia did NOT like having to sit in my lap the entire time. Sometimes I stood in the aisle and let her stand and bounce in the seat, but at one point she was playing with the pack of cards (I say playing, but I really mean she was throwing them on the floor) and I thought we should put them away. She was NOT happy with me and started flailing her arms around. Apparently she grabbed some of the pages from the book my seat-mate was reading because there was a ripping noise and suddenly Lydia was holding the corners of two of the pages from that book. I was HORRIFIED. I kept apologizing over and over but the woman just said, "Oh don't worry, we'll just tape that right back in there." She was incredibly sweet about the incident, and about the whole plane ride, despite being whacked repeatedly by a restrained 17-month-old's flailing arms.
I had a wonderful time on my vacation, despite the torturous book-ends of the airplane flight. I hope I never again have to fly solo with a toddler (in arms), at least not without benadryl. I might try it one more time with benadryl, but I think driving anywhere would be preferable to 2 hours of pure torture confined in an airplane seat with a toddler in my lap.
3 comments:
Glad you survived!! And I'm so happy you braved the elements so we could see each other. On our plane trip back there was this woman with her two kids (7 and 9ish) a few rows up and they were bickering...not loudly, but audibly...and not enough to wake up Owen. There was also a mom traveling with a lap infant (8mo.), her 6ish year old son and her mother in the row just adjacent to me. I tell you this because after the plane landed, this really rude mother in law tapped the mom of the two bickering kids on the shoulder and told her that her children were really loud and and disturbing the whole airplane etc. It was awful. I felt so bad for that mom, that I even apologized for that rude woman's behavior when I saw her at baggage claim. And then that mother in law came up to me and tried to get sympathy for how how loud the other mom's kids were! Incredulous! I gave her no sympathy, but I should have given her a bit more of a piece of my mind. It's terrible people are so rude. If I were you I would have tapped those people on the shoulder and laid it on thick and sweet with just the right amount of cynicism. It was worth it though!
Oh goodness. Note to self not to travel with baby at that age...especially if Jeremy can't come with. We flew to Utah a couple of weeks ago (also during naptime...what a laugh!) and it wasn't all kicks and giggles either. Glad you survived! :)
Yay for surviving two hours on the plane with a toddler. My 2 year-old was recently asking if I could take him on an airplane. he was actually alright at 23 months, but at that time it was two against one. Still, my experience makes me very sympathetic when I see people traveling with children.
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