Of planes and kids

This week I had to go on a short business trip to the UK, which means about an 8 hour flight both ways. I usually don't mind it, I've done it so may times that I've pretty much got used to it. This time however? It was a total different story and if I had to spend another minute on the plane they would have dragged me out unconscious and mumbling crazy things about how I didn't mean to kill the kid but he was asking me to do it.

BOTH WAYS.

The flight over there was a nightmare, or so I thought. I had no idea how worse it could be. I had this nice little family sitting on the row behind me with their two boys, maybe 5 and 3. The youngest one was sitting on his mother, right behind me and he just wouldn't stop messing with the seat in front of him, i.e. my seat. Punching it, kicking it, pulling at it, and there I was sitting in my seat feeling like I was on a ship sailing on stormy seas. At one point I was starting to feel nauseated and if I was going to throw up I would have liked to turn around and do it on that kid. Fortunately for the kid and his mother no such thing happened though. The good thing about it all? You wouldn't hear the kid whine or cry or anything like that, he was as good as a pea playing with toys and talking to his parents about their trip, it actually sounded really cute and that's probably what kept me from hating him. Finally he slept and I was so relieved, for all but half an hour ! I felt like telling him kid you got a long way to go don't you think you should consider sleeping a bit longer?? It didn't seem so. Lets just say that when the plane landed and they opened the door I was out in the blink of an eye.

The flight back home, now that is a real nightmare. Out of sheer luck I had another cute family sitting in the row behind me, again with two boys, this time around 2 and a baby just a few months old. What do you think the 2 year old did as soon as he was buckled up on his mother? Start kicking and pulling at the seat of course ! A couple of minutes in and I was thinking why oh why did they have to be placed behind me? Why couldn't someone else enjoy such a lovely experience on their flight? But wait that's not what made the flight a nightmare. It's the 8 hours of whining and begging from the 2 year old and wailing and screaming from the baby which made everything so darn frustrating and made my flight three days before seem like a breeze. Seriously, don't kids get tired at all? And that baby, his throat must have been burning by the end of the flight, I'm surprised he could still make noises with his mouth. I thank God for my iPod in times like these, it let me sleep when the kid wasn't wrestling with my seat. The two guys sitting near me were huffing and puffing, I thought one of them was going to turn around and wrangle those kids any minute. Now I'm not the kind of person that would turn around and say anything to the parents, because really what can they do, I actually felt sorry for them because it must have been even worse for them. I wouldn't like to imagine what a trip with two small kids would be like. One lady thought differently though, and she wasn't sitting near enough for the wailing to get into her head, but she went up to the parents and went tsk tsk tsk you young parents don't know how to control your kids. When I heard her I thought whattt?? Would anyone really think of doing that? It's not like the parents where enjoying it all and as irritated as I was I still thought that was uncalled for. Who was she kidding? I seriously felt like telling her to shut up and go back to her seat.