For reasons that will become clear, this entry is going to be a bit shorter than the others. (Thank God, you say).
Nancy and I are in the finishing stages of packing and steeling ourselves for our trip to Maine.* We leave tomorrow (Saturday). This will be our first time tending to toddlers on an airplane. All I can think about is how much the other passengers are going to resent us. I have nightmares in which the kids spontaneously multiply and embark on a campaign of in-flight terror so egregious that we end up being forced off the flight mid-air somewhere over Amish country. Here’s what my nightmares sound like:**
Forcing toddlers off planes (though NOT mid-air), it seems, has a recent precedent. Check out story from a few weeks ago:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19735896/
and this one from January:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16773655/
So, we may get to Maine and we may not. We’ll see. But if the airlines think talking too much or throwing a small temper tantrum is bad, wait until they get a load of David deciding he is Going To Bite You. There’s no escape. He’s a viper in a diaper. I’m reminded of the movie “Snakes on a Plane” (which I never did see), and Samuel Jackson’s famous tirade: “I’m tired of these Mother----ing snakes on this Mother----ing plane!” Exchange “babies” for “snakes” and you get the gist of what most passengers will be thinking. My brother suggests that I avoid eye contact with other passengers: they won’t be suddenly filled with sympathy and love. They will only take the opportunity to let me know – in a passive-aggressive way, looking up from their airport-purchased bestsellers or scowling sidelong from their trade journals and/or laptops – just how pissed off they really are. At which point, I will have David go over and tell a few of them all about tractors…yellow tractors. And maybe I’ll have him throw in a thesis about the “boo boo” he got in the park. Or what color their books are.
But maybe they will be perfect little darlings. There’s a precedent for that, too. We took them to Turkey Run State park last Saturday and walked Trail 10 – a 1.5 mile trail that had been marked as “Moderate,” but occasionally joined with Trail 3 which was marked as “Very Rugged.” 1.5 miles doesn’t sound like much, but it’s different, I found, when you’ve got a wiggling toddler in your arms/on your shoulders. One of the highlights was trying to pass over a little gorge by climbing up a slightly wet rock about 10 feet and then traversing a one-foot-wide ledge for another 20 feet or so before descending the rock again. I felt pretty proud of us until I saw a guy do it holding one toddler in his arms and a baby in a harness on his back. Another highlight was noticing (after crossing over “Wedge Rock”) that David’s “Pull-Up” diaper had finally had enough and started to make its way out of his shorts and down his right leg. Luckily, it was filled only with liquid. But we didn’t have a replacement (because we’re stupid), so we just removed the diaper (which I rolled up, secured, and placed in my pocket…mmmm, yum), and let him go Commando the rest of the way. The rest of the way took about 20 minutes and Nancy spent that whole time praying to the hiking gods that they demanded no more offerings. The gods obliged her. Finally, once we got back to the car and changed the kids, we went to have lunch at the Turkey Run Inn. Anyone who has ever bussed or waited tables knows that the only thing worse than a toddler in a restaurant is TWO toddlers in a restaurant sitting close to one another: Oh the humanity! But David and Trin, to our surprise and glee, turned in a performance for the ages. Both stayed seated; both ate their meals (with forks!); both drank their milk out of straws (where did they learn to do that? Is it a hard-wired function?); and both charmed the wariness right out of the other patrons.
Thinking ahead to tomorrow’s adventure, is it too much to ask that we can step in the same stream twice?
Bon voyage.
*since there is only limited access to internet there, I will be taking next Friday off from the blog. But I will return on August 10 to tell you all about it.
**this is a combination of many different recordings made over several weeks. It is not (thank goodness) an actual representation of what our house sounds like.
2 comments:
Yow! The chaos audio clip reminded me of forcing myself to listen to particularly grating Negativeland sides.....But let's face it: your kinder are way cuter than Negativeland.
BTW, where will you be in Maine? I have delusions of driving up and bugging you for an hour or so and then buggering off again. Please inform.
What airline are you flying? I know the choices are pretty limited, but I've become a total Southwest convert, simply because the pre-boarding for people with small children thing means that you can often get all the small children in the front of the plane, where the noise they make can't travel very far. A lot of families seem to fly Southwest, and very, very few business people seem to choose it, so it can be a relatively stress-free airline in that sense.
You probably have all of this covered, but we found that having something New! and Novel! to pull out of a bag every 20 minutes or so worked wonders; as did taking the car seat and strapping the kid down in a familiar-feeling thing. Since Molly was used to nodding off in her car seat in the car, she was able to sleep for a little while on the plane to CA as well.
You'll all be fine, and the vacation (and being with relatives who have been aching for some baby time) will work wonders, I promise. Safe (and uneventful) travels!!
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