Here are a few thing about last night's plane ride:
A plane ride with toddlers is shitty. At the very best, in the most opportune and spectacular circumstances, it can only be crappy. At best. You start at shitty, and go downhill from there. The first half of last night's flight, girls A and B were in pretty high spirits and it was all mostly okay. But even then, as we sat there and did whatever while the girls fidgeted and played with their toys, I couldn't help but constantly dwell on the fact that I'd rather be pretty much anywhere else with my kids than vacuum-packed into a 3 square foot area 38,000 feet over Tennessee. There is no real joy in air travel with kids....you can only hope to survive it, and count your lucky stars that your kids don't dump a glass of cranberry juice on the people in front of you (that didn't happen to us, I'm just sayin').
Around the midway point, things started to unravel. Lily showed crystal clear signs that she was exhausted, but refused at every step to just lay her head on our shoulders and sleep. She chose, instead, to thrash around in a well thought out plan to tell the world her level of discomfort. Abby wasn't quite so bad at first, but she had a major meltdown just prior to descent. After a good five minutes of screeching, I bounced her on my arm up and down the aisle, and finally she rammed her head into my neck and fell graciously asleep.
Lily spent the last third of the flight kicking the seat ahead of her (little tip: don't put your seat back when you sit in front of lap children. I know it's your right as a passenger and all, but really, it does no one any favors, including yourself), she yelled at the window, she wiggled and writhed, and was alternately furious and giddy at the whole state of affairs.
When the beastly 737 finally touched down at 1130, we were ready to be done. I hate that last part of the trip, though, when you only want to collapse into bed, but there's the unpacking of necessities and milk and jammies and all those mechanics of life that need tending to. It is infinitely tiring, this living business.
One cool part of the flight: Lily became slightly interested in the seat reclining button on the armrest before we even left the gate. She barely gave it much of a passing glance, really. From then on, though, whenever there was a chime over the speakers, she would stop what she was doing, turn to the armrest, and push the button. How freaking strange is that!? It made no sense; I still can't figure out what logic there is behind it. There must have been a dozen chimes that made her turn and push the button. Random and cute.
In one of my finer moments, I was standing for a bit during the flight, stretching my legs and leaning my head on the overhead bin. I was half asleep, glassy and groggy. I wasn't really paying attention to anything, enjoying my zoning out, when I realized that I was essentially staring at the woman one row behind us who was breastfeeding her baby. Who's the jerk? Me.
Day three hundred and seventeen.
As someone who just took a flight with two kids at 1 in the morning, I thoroughly enjoyed this post. What is that toy and where can I get one?
ReplyDelete