Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Evolution of cross country travel

Our cross country voyages to visit family have become infinitely easier in the past couple of years. This trip...and this one...are all but distant memory. I never even found the courage to write about the worst of them all....Christmas '05 when I flew Noe and Asher back to New York from Portland alone. Noe had just turned 3 and was recovering from strep throat (not contagious, but still feeling miserable). Asher had just turned 1. There was vomit, poop, tears, myriads of screaming and an unexpected 5 hour on-plane layover in Salt Lake City (it was supposed to be a non-stop flight).

Anyways, our most recent spring break flying experience was pretty relaxed. The highlights included:

*getting randomly selected (me, the WHITE WOMAN) for a pat-down while my brown husband and brown boys walked right through onto the plane. Where is the justice, I say? It was a little embarassing, having an entire flight's worth of passengers watching you get patted down. Couldn't they at least have a little curtained-off area?

*convincing Asher that the button on your arm rest that lifts your seat down makes the plane go and stop.

*watching a passenger sit down next to Asher where his pretend kitty cat was sitting, only to hear him yell at the man, "You are sitting on my kitty cat!" and then make pretend dying-cat meowing noises.

On our flight back last night, a man sitting next to us complimented me on my "well behaved children" and "great parenting" and how "the one behind never even made a peep ." I had to laugh based on our flying history, and also on the fact that Asher was watching dvds most of the flight (great parenting indeed) and Noe (the one sitting behind us) .....well....we all wish Noe would "peep" more.

2 comments:

Kage said...

the cat! hilarious.

I have been randomly selected too, but that is funny....

Beth said...

I love kid traveling stories. Maybe b/c we are doing it ourselves so often. I have had just about every experience as well. I love the Asher stories. So funny. Glad you traveled safe!