I just survived the day I spend two years dreading. Yes, two full years of dread for one day. There are others that I don’t particularly look forward, but they don’t even come close to this one. Second place goes to that day at the end of February when we have our annual puke-fest. There is usually one day of overlap when all children are simultaneously puking and pooping because of a nasty little tummy bug that is working the rounds.
So, what day could be worse than that you may ask? Well, picture my family on an airplane for 22 hours. Every second year we embark on a wildly stressful journey to spend the holidays with the in-laws. Mind you, once we arrive it is completely stress-free which is why I am willing to suffer through the getting there part. I recently wrote an article about this journey and it was aptly titled “Hell in the Skies”.
I made two observations during this most recent trip:
1) My new heroes in life are the people behind the Nintendo DS. I truly admire them and feel that I should offer up my next born child to them in thanks. I know having an electronic babysitter is frowned upon, but there is a time and a place – a 22 hour flight is such a time and a place. So to my friends at Nintendo DS, have I told you lately how much I love you?
2) You can actually get flight attendants to back down if you turn into psycho-mom. I had finally settled one very crabby kid to sleep. With seatbelt on, she was lying down beside me. We soon encountered a bit of turbulence and I was instructed to lift child upright. At that point, I invited nice flight attendant to arrest me, fine me or throw me in bad passenger jail because there was NO way that child was going to be disturbed. Yes, I was willing to risk a turbulence related injury – sleeping child trumped bodily harm. Any of you mamas who are game to travel with kids will understand that kind of desperation. Our nice flight attendant realized she was not dealing with a rational human so slowly backed away as not to make any sudden movements that could cause me to lash out.
So was it worth the two years of dread? All things considered, maybe dread is a bit extreme but at least if my expectations are low I am pleasantly surprised when I survive without throwing a tot out of the plane.
Fortunately, I now have four weeks of therapy to prepare myself to board the plane for the journey home.
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Glad to hear you survived! Hope you get some wonderful R&R!
LOL! I have ssssoooo been there. There’s nothing quite as precious during travel as sleep-time for kids – and barring that, an activity (á la DS) that mesmerizes for the entire flight. You need a label on each DS in case of loss though… ;c)
I am getting R&R! mostly because of technical problems in collecting email and my blackberry is down!
We managed to get over the jetlag quickly which is another drama I didn't even get to in the last post. ha! And margot, you bet those DS games are mabeled!!