Born to Fly

A few weeks ago, I received the exciting news that my expat sister and her family would be in the states for vacation. This was great news, because she and I had babies eighteen days apart last summer and we still hadn't all met up yet. As I considered all my options for travelling home to Virginia to see them, an ugly reality set in. "You're just going to have to fly with the kids," Joe told me. I promptly asked for a brown paper bag to breathe in. Flying with my oldest child has always been a pride-swallowing experience at best.

When Luke was six months old, our little family of three took a trip together. As we were boarding the plane, I said to Joe, "That mother over there is by herself. See if she needs help folding up her stroller." When he asked her if she needed any help, she looked at him like he had two heads and replied, "No, thanks," and proceeded to fold up her stroller with a quick flick of one wrist. She and her baby sat one row ahead of us. Luke, never one to like sitting still, caused quite the ruckus throughout the entire flight. Her baby fell asleep on takeoff, allowing her to put him down on the empty seat next to her while she read a magazine. The flight attendant kept walking the aisles, saying over and over, "Isn't little Caleb a good baby?" Then she'd give us the evil eye. I really wanted to spill my drink on little Caleb and see just how good a baby he really was.

When Luke was eleven months old, we took a trip immediately following one of Joe's deployments. I was never so elated as when Joe checked us in and said, "Well, it looks like we're not sitting together." We rock-paper-scissored to see who was going to have to sit with Luke. I think I lost, but I reasoned that Joe needed to sit with him anyway and make up for lost time. I smiled the entire duration of the flight, reading my book so peacefully. I did endure some hardship on that flight though--it took all the self control I could muster not to shout, "CAN YOU SHUT THAT BABY UP?" toward the front of the plane where Joe was sitting.

Oh, I have flying stories to last all night. There was the time he tossed his cookies all over me right as we were walking through security. There was the time he dirtied his diaper right as they turned the seatbelt light on for the descent. Oh, actually, that happened every time we flew while he was in diapers.

Of all the travelling horrors I've experienced, it was never worse than when I was four months pregnant with George, and sixteen-month-old Luke and I traveled home for a funeral. Luke slept in his stroller until it was time to board the plane. I must explain, even when he wakes up naturally, according to his own schedule and needs, it is not pretty. When he has to be woken, hold onto your hat. I carried a screaming child onto the plane and tried all my best tricks. "Little Einsteins" on the iPod, bananas, nothing worked. He just screamed. I could hear the heavy sighs of everyone around me. I saw people massaging their temples and rolling their eyes.

"Colic?" an older gentleman asked sympathetically. Anyone who knows anything about babies knows that colic pretty much disappears by age three months. "Yes! That's it!" I replied. "My toddler has colic." I looked around to see if anyone was going to have mercy on me, but nope, still a lot of eye-rolling and groaning.

Luke stopped crying about 45 minutes into the flight. Thankfully, the head flight attendant came by to chat with me. She went on and on about how hard flying is on babies, and how sometimes they're just inconsolable. I thought that maybe her speech was really pointed at everyone around me who had been giving me a hard time. Then she told me that if she were me, she would get off the plane and have a stiff drink. "I wish!" I responded, "But I'm four months pregnant!" The second I said it, I wished I would have kept my big mouth shut. Not ONE person around me congratulated me! And I think I heard someone asking if I could be put on the Do Not Fly list. I wanted to die.

This time around, I lost several nights of sleep due to the anxiety surrounding our trip. I laid in my bed every night and choreographed every step I was going to have to take through security. Take Luke out of the stroller, threaten Luke within an inch of his life if he walks away, remove George's carrier, fold up the stroller, take George out of the carrier...I had mentally packed and repacked my diaper bag a hundred times. I practiced lamaze techniques.

I am pleased to say that the trip went off without a hitch. I beamed as I received compliments from other passengers and flight attendants. My kids behaved beautifully on the flights out to Virginia! Luke even said "please" and "thank you" for his drinks and snacks. This glory is shortlived, though, as I realize that there will be a price to pay on the return trip for getting off so easy this time, and it won't be pretty.

And lest you should think I'm going to turn into some braggy mommy blogger, boring you with stories about how polite my kids are, be assured that this is still the same Luke whom, just the other day, I found dipping underwear from a pile of dirty laundry into the dog's water bowl, and slapping her in the face with it.