caution: travelling with children

I just read this article about a family who was kicked off their flight when their 3 year old child refused to sit down and be buckled into her seat. The flight had already been delayed by 15 minutes and there appeared to be no sign that the parents were going to be able to get the child to sit down and cooperate. The plane cannot take off until all its passengers are wearing seat belts.

This is funny to me. And sad. I know the power of a meltdown in a public place and I know how claustrophobic it is on an airplane, and how every person coming down the aisle has that look on their face ("I hope that kid is not sitting next to me"). But come on, you couldn't get your own child to sit down and put on a seat belt??? How do you go to the grocery store every week? How do you function in your day-to-day life? Sometimes you have to be the Bad Mommy or Bad Daddy and say, This is for your own good. Do it. Here are some travel tips for you.

Granted I've never been on a long plane ride so I know some people who can offer much better advice than me in that respect - keeping attention occupied for the long term - but we've been on over a dozen short plane rides now with Maymuna and/or Hafsa and I think I've got it down to three basic elements: (1) sleep stuff. (2) food stuff. (3) play stuff.

For sleep, bring whatever your child needs to fall asleep so that if they are tired they can do so, instead of just melting down. So despite how precious that teddy bear is, and how the scariest thing in the world to you is losing it, bring it with you. I usually bring a blanket from home too. For babies nursing has always done the trick for us, especially combined with the bumpy take-off.

For food. Bring lots. Snacks, snacks, snacks. Some salty. Some sweet. Some special. Meltdown will occur if you don't have food. And the pretzels on the plane do not count. If you can, bring an empty sippy cup for each child and ask the attendant to fill it when they offer drinks. No one is really quenched by that tiny cup of water/pop/coffee, are they? Well, neither are the kids. And I personally recommend water. Like they need any sugar while in a confined space like that.

For play. Bring at least one thing they've never seen before. I picked up a colouring pad (the kind with markers that only work on the special paper) for Maymuna last time and it worked great. For Hafsa I brought as many small toys as possible and divided them into 3 ziploc bags. That way you don't have to fish around in the diaper bag for one toy - you can just grab a bag, exhaust its possibilities and toss it back in and retrieve another one. Unfortunately though, soothers, Little People and stuff like that inevitably get thrown around. Be prepared to be the last off the plane (which is likely anyway) and scoop them all up. If you are carrying a laptop for work, bringing a DVD for a child Maymuna's age can be a lifesaver.

The last thing is, don't underestimate the layover. The layover, while a drag, can be your friend. As soon as we arrive in Chicago we let the kids just go - run, walk, crawl - and get it out of their system.

Of course now we have an extra mobile traveler and an extremely active one... anything could happen, all bets could be off... we might annoy every single person on the plane, and I think it is likely that will happen one of these days. My new motto is Ticked off, not kicked off!! ;)