July 7, 2010: Babies on a plane

It's hard to choose the best part of our flight home from California. Was it Gavin sleeping through 99% of it like a beautiful little angel? Or was it me getting a nosebleed in the middle of the flight and spattering my son's leg and sock? I don't know. Both were pretty awesome.

Gavin, it turns out, is a far more flexible traveler than we'd thought. Hell, he's more flexible than we'd hoped. He adjusted very quickly to California time and will hopefully adjust quickly back to Michigan time. Last night was a little rough. He didn't get to sleep until after 10 p.m. But he did sleep until after 9 a.m. so all is well.

We took the red eye home and there were actually quite a few babies and toddlers on the flight. A little play group even formed. One of the mothers had a bunch of toy cars and Gavin, her son, and another little boy all played with them. The car mom's son hit Gavin in the face and head more than once, which made her flip out a little bit. She grabbed his hand and stared straight into his face while saying, "No! No! Bad boy. Bad boy!" No doubt this solved the problem and her child will never hit anyone ever again. Actually, not long after this her boy came up to Gavin and she hustled over and grabbed him saying to me, "He's unpredictable. I don't know what he'll do," as if he was going to pull out a shank or something. Granted I didn't spend much time with him, but he seemed like a pretty average two-year-old boy.

Perhaps as a kind of compensation, Car Mom gave Gavin one of her son's little Matchbox cars as we got in line to board. "Oh, no, you don't have to do that," I said, in large part because I felt like the car wasn't age-appropriate for Gavin (the wheels and the little hinged hood screamed "choking hazard"). She insisted and Gavin was quite pleased. Soon after, however, he chucked the car at her. "You don't like it?" she asked, seeming genuinely hurt. "Sorry. No, he's just at that throw everything stage," I said. I did not retrieve the car.

Lo and behold, sitting next to us in our row was one of the other kids from the impromptu play group and his mom. She was visibly pregnant. He was almost two and giantly tall. He scooted into the space between their seat and the seat in front of them essentially blocking his mom from sitting down. She tried in vain to lift the aisle arm rest so she could slide into the seat, but no luck. So I grabbed her son and put him on my lap so that she could sit down. This is not something I ever would have done before becoming a mom. And it is because I'm a mom that this woman was thankful and not freaked out. I also steadied milk she had in a Starbucks cup between my feet during take off. This was in part to be nice since there was really nowhere for her to put it and she had no free hands due to the future NBA star toddler folded onto her lap. But truthfully, I think milk is gross and not only was my purse was on the floor, but the last thing I wanted was to spend five hours surrounded by milk soaked carpet. Of course, I doubt she wanted to spend five hours sitting next to a woman with blood pouring out of her nose, but hey, we don't always get what we want (and to be fair, I did not bleed for five hours, even though it felt like it).