Flying and Toddlers and Tantrums - oh my!

 There are probably a thousand articles written on flying with toddlers and three times that many blog posts about the subject. I sure wish I had read some of them.

It's not that I wasn't prepared when we took our vacation last month, I was. I had toys and books, snacks and as many things to occupy him as I could stuff in my good old Petunia Picklebottom diaper bag.  I did my best. He is clearly to old to be enthralled by the flashing lights of baby toys now and too young to enjoy puzzles or to color for any length of time. Coloring was a judgement call. I'm certain Virgin American is thankful I left the crayons at home, their planes are colorful enough. 

I wish I'd read those articles and blog posts to have one simple thing validated: flying with a toddler is exhausting! At the end of each of those five hours; from D.C. to LA, from LA to HI, From HI back to LA and then from LA back to D.C. I seriously felt as though I hadn't slept for a week, had been run over by a bus and then forced to run on the treadmill for an hour. 

I was weary, people. Weary. 

Elisabeth Hasselbeck recently said she views flying as mommy's rest time. She settles em in, picks up a magazine and lets everyone else deal with her kids.

Stellar parenting right there. (Sorry, did I damage your computers from the sarcasm dripping off of that last sentence?) I'm not that mom. I try very hard to make sure that Max enjoy his travels as much as possible, and that we are polite and intrude on your travels as little as possible. But this last flight just about killed me.

It was the last leg of our journey and my husband had already headed back to D.C. and to work, so it was just me and the little guy on the final flight. Alone. We had wisely (or foolishly) booked the 10:00 p.m. flight hoping that he would sleep most of the time. I firmly believe there are two types of toddlers when they succumb to fatigue but are not able to sleep.

Type one: Cranky, fussy, angry toddlers.

Type two: Goofy, silly, but a bit like a cantankerous drunk; a good time, but bug 'em to much and they'll flip out.

Max is type two all the way. He charmed everyone waiting by joyfully dancing for them, clapping his fat little toddler hands and flirting with all the ladies. Oh good, I thought, they like him, perhaps this will make the flight easier if he freaks out and I will get the 'poor baby' looks as opposed to the 'shut that damn baby up!' looks. 

Then our flight was delayed and delayed again. Midnight was quickly approaching and Max was getting antsier and wigglier and reasoning with him was like trying to talk a drunk girl out of showing up at her ex boyfriend's house to proclaim her love. By the time we finally boarded and took off I was a wreck and dangerously close to tears. The flight was packed and Max was so tired he was bucking, wiggling and screaming.

I was mortified. None of the toys worked, he scoffed at the snacks and ruthlessly pushed me away when I tried to nurse him to a peaceful rest. I was frantic to get him to sleep and finally caved to the brilliant televisions located in every seat back. (Dear Virgin American televisions, marry me?) He was quickly distracted by the antics of Spongebob, something he doesn't watch at home, and I could feel everyone around me relax. Finally, he gave way to exhaustion and nursed to sleep. Just as the pilot announced "we are beginning our final descent into Washington, Dulles."

My mother in law picked us up from the airport and took us home, where I promptly slept for 10 hours. Straight.

Ugh. So to every flying mothers everywhere, I feel for ya. I'm on your side. I'll be the one smiling at your baby and you. It won't be the 'shut that baby up' look, or even the 'poor baby' look. It will be the 'hang in there mamma, this too shall pass. You can do it.' look. And then I hope you get to take a long nap, because flying with your kids is exhausting. 

This is an original DC Metro Moms Blog post. When Stephanie a.k.a. Minky isn't crying on airplanes she blogs about her undying love for Target at Dial M for Minky and Twitters away at MinkyMoo