Saturday, March 10, 2012

Whole Lotta Hoopla

Seems there is a whole lot of hoopla about a toddler who had a um, meltdown on a flight from Turks & Caicos to the United States.  Apparently it was so bad they had to turn the plane around after it had pushed back from the gate...but how bad was it really?

I mean if you've got kids then you know that any meltdown a child has on a plane is exponentially worse than it would be on the ground and from experience feels about the worst moment in your parenting life. I mean everyone, everyone is looking at you and you can actually hear the thoughts they are thinking about your parenting skill and feel the dirty looks pierce the seat back.  Have I about captured it?

Of course in an effort to abate this behavior (the children's) we bring all sorts of things with us on planes to pacify them...iPads are pretty much the thing to have it seems unless of course these things make your kids more insane than they were previously due to pure frustration. Parents are supposed to deal with it all on planes now; bring your own food, dodge the TSA with your breastmilk, bring toys, electronics, change of clothes for everyone in the row and diapers just in case...so when it's all in the bag you have a regular sized suitcase ready for carry on travel for the just in case moments that happen in rapid succession when you are on a plane with children.

What happened to the friendly skies, right?  What happened to getting wings and visiting the pilot and special meals and getting a wee bottle of Jameson from a stewardess (remember when they were called that?)  Well, I'll tell you...we all went a little crazy and started harassing kids at security and and turning planes around when a toddler had a tantrum...you know missing the forest for um, the trees.

But it's not all bad.  The kids and I have traveled a lot on long haul flights and on what will probably be our last we had two unique experiences in Newark of all places and on Continental operated by United but I digress...read up on how K assisted TSA here...but after a long day and a long week K was pleasantly surprised when we boarded the commuter plane from Newark to Boston and the pilot invited him into the cockpit to take a look around...I mean when was the last time that happened?!  As if that wasn't enough the pilot then let K press a few buttons and sound an alarm!  Did this pilot win a prize in my book, absolutely.  Did my son have one of the most unique experiences of his childhood without recognizing it, you bet he did.

Some day, he'll look back at this experience and probably remember visiting the cockpit on his way back from living in China but he'll never recognize how unique that experience was until he's older, either of them.

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