"Those" Parents

This evening, as we ventured home, Seth and I became "those" parents.  You know, the ones that have a child on the plane that they can't seem to control.  Evie wasn't being fussy.  She was just being loud.  Like, really loud, yelling at people inside the plane, yelling at the people outside the plane who were loading the baggage.  Yelling in a friendly way, mind you, but still yelling.

Let me back up.  Our trip home was a rough one.  We got to John Wayne airport with an hour and a half to go before our flight.  First bump was the fact that we had two bags, one which weighed 48 lbs and the other 55.  The limit before having to pay an extra $75 is 50 lbs.  So we spent a while shuffling things from one bag to the other and to our carry on.  All with a car seat, stroller, diaper bag, and 11 month old in tow.

Bump #2 was when I walked through the metal detector with Evie (wearing her in the Bjorn), and when they ran the test on my palms, it set off the alarm.  Therefore, all of our stuff had to be individually searched, Evie's palms had to be tested, she had to be patted down, and then I had to give Evie to Seth while I went into a closed room for a more invasive pat-down.  (Evie, I hope by the time you read this, TSA rules are different, and for the better.)  This wasn't exactly terrible, but it was pretty annoying and inconvenient.

Bump #3: changing Evie's diaper.  Somehow, the John Wayne airport does not have baby changing stations in the ladies room.  They have these long open spaces at the ends of a counter of sinks at the back of the restroom, but no straps to keep your kid from rolling off, no covers to put your kid's bottom down on, nothing remotely diaper changing friendly.  The other option is to use the one family restroom.  Which was "occupied".  And stayed occupied for about 5 minutes while I waited outside.  Then they started boarding our flight, so I had to make do with what was there in the ladies'.

Then, we get on the flight and Evie is loud as we are boarding, loud as we are taking off, and then starts to get a little fussy.  I gave her her bottle, which calmed her down a bit, and I wanted to lean my seat back to help get her to sleep.  So I reclined maybe about half the distance you can actually recline in the airplane seats, which is not that much, and the guy behind me pushed my seat back up.  I thought that maybe this was a fluke, an accident, so I just let it ride and tried to get Evie to sleep without being reclined.  (Mind you, I'm not usually one to recline my seat, but for my baby, yes, I will do that.)

So about 45 minutes goes by and she's still fussy, so I try to recline my seat again.  The guy behind me literally shoves my seat forward again, while cussing at me.  And, being the kind of person I am, I turned around and said, "Excuse me?"  He said, "Nothing.  It's just, my legs are long and you keep reclining your seat."  I said, "These seats are made to recline and I have an infant I'm trying to get to sleep."  Then he snapped his fingers at the flight attendant and asked to be moved to another seat.  I wish he could have, but they didn't have any vacant.  So he proceeded to purposefully dig his knees into my back the entire time, just in case I had any more ideas about reclining my seat.

Let me tell you, I was livid.  I mean, furious.  First off, the nerve that he would violently shove my seat back up, but to use profanity at me while doing it?!  Ugh, I'd forgotten how self-important Californians can be sometimes.  I sat there fuming for the rest of the flight, finally bouncing Evie to sleep in the most uncomfortable upright position, debating whether to talk to a flight attendant and complain about the use of language and physical force, and letting out tears of anger and frustration.  I thought to myself while Evie was crying, "Go on, girl, be loud."  I didn't even care if it bothered anyone else at this point.  I was one of "those" parents anyway, even though I really had been trying to prevent her from crying any further by letting her recline a little bit.  I hated for her to be upset, but if she was going to be upset, I wanted her screams to go in that guy's direction.  By the time we landed in Denver, I was a ball of anger.  While we were deplaning, I wanted to look back at this "giant" who needed so much leg room, hand him $15 and tell him, "Here's the $15 it costs to upgrade to stretch seating next time, you jerk."  But I didn't.

We had 40 minutes in Denver to change planes, including grabbing a quick bite and changing Evie's diaper.  Our next flight wasn't as full and Evie was very pleasant while we were boarding the plane, so at least things were looking up.  She was smiling, and people were waving and her and she was waving back, friendly little tyke that she is.  But I was still really, really mad.  I couldn't get over the nerve of that guy, and I was just hoping that everything would go okay on the next flight.  Our row was full, and as we were taking off, the flight attendant came up to the gentleman who was sharing our row and asked him if he'd like to move to the open seat in the exit aisle once the plane had taken off.  He said yes.  Given the way the day had gone, I leaned over to him and said, "I bet you're relieved."  He shook his head no and said, "Children are special," and then chatted with Seth about Evie and children in general.

And he's right.  They are special.  Even if they are fussy, even if they don't understand that they are being so loud that they are disturbing other people, they are special.  And I was so grateful to be reminded that there are plenty of people who do love kids and are kind to people who are traveling with small children, which is definitely the most stress I've ever experienced while traveling.  Thank goodness for kind, understanding fellow travelers.