June 03, 2005
Children are the best birth control EVER....
So, flying from LA to Phoenix there was a 5 year old behind me. I was in the window seat, the middle was empty and DH was on the aisle. The kid's mom was in the middle and someone else was on the aisle.
I'm thinking, it's only an hour, it won't be a problem. WRONG.
For those of you lucky enough to have never flown out of LAX, take-off is over the water. That kept the kid occupied for about 10 minutes, then....
To find out the rest, read the extended entry....
KICK
KICK KICK KICK....
"Honey, don't do that, it's not nice"
KICK KICK KICK
"No. Don't do that."
KICK. "I have to go potty!!!!"
"Wait 'til we can get up and then Daddy will take you"
"NOOOOOOO!" KICK KICK
(I am livid at this point and glowering at the woman EVERY time the kid kicks me.... You'd think she'd get the point....)
So then the seat belt light goes off, and the kid runs to the bathroom before Dad can get out of his seat behind Mom.
5 minutes of blessed relief.
He returns in time for the flight attendant to get their drink order, to which he responds "MILK!"
"we don't have milk"
"CHOCOLATE MILK!"
"we don't have that either"
"MILK!"
(the Mom) "you can have sprite, soda, juice, or water. what do you want?"
"MILK!"
"No, you can't have that. What do you want?"
"don't know..."
at this point Mom tells the FA to come back later. Evevtually the kid still can't make up his mind and mom gets him a Ginger Ale. 5 more minutes of peace, then....
KICK KICK KICK.
"Honey, I told you not to bother the lady"
KICK KICK KICK
"the lady doesn't want to be kicked"
"YES SHE DOES!" KICK KICK
"No, she doesn't!!" my husband replied.
The mom then told the kid he was going to get his butt blistered if he didn't stop.
Yeah, right.
A couple of minutes later the plane did a quick drop through an air pocket, so I leaned back in the seat. I had my hair up in a bun and the kid reached up and grabbed it!!!!
Mom says "Don't touch the lady's hair"
!!!!!
At this point, I decide to stay hunched forward.
About this time we begin our final approach into Phoenix. As we swing wide around the city, the Mom starts pointing out landmarks to the rest of the family (evidently they live there). 5-year old decides Mom really wants to look out the window, so he shuts the shade....
"open that up" She opens it.
NOOOOOO I want it CLOSED. Bang.
OPEN IT! Slides up the shade.
NOOOOOO. BANG!
Mommy wants to see. Up goes the shade
I don't wanna see. BANG!
I SAID OPEN THE SHADE!
NOOOOO. The light hurts my eyes. KICK KICK
Well, open it a little way, Mommy wants to see.
OK. Opens it exactly. 1.5 inches. IT'S TOO BRIGHT!!! BANG.
Then he says.... "Tell everyone else to close their windows too." to which she replies: "I can't, I'm not the boss of them". He says "I am". She says "You are not. Now, open the window so Mommy can see."
NOOOOO. YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!!!!! KICK KICK KICK
"Do you want me to pull down your pants and blister your bottom in front of everyone?"
"HAHAHA"
"You're going to sit with Daddy next time" (I'm thinking, why couldn't he sit with Dad NOW and kick his brother instead of ME???)
Then begins the war of the window in earnest.....
SLIDE. BANG. SLIDE. BANG. MOMMY WANTS IT OPEN. IT HURTS MY EYES. I'M GONNA SPANK YOU. SLIDE. BANG. SLIDE. BANG. KICK. KICK.
Finally, the plane lands. As we're taxi-ing up to the terminal, I hear "Mommy, I want to go potty".
"No, you have to sit in your seat until we get to the building. Then you can go once we get in the building"
"Can't I just use the plane potty?"
"no, people need to get off the plane to go other places. This plane needs to get empty so people can go somewhere else. You'd just hold them up."
"BUT I HAVE TO GO"
"You can go in the terminal!"
Finally, the mom won. He did indeed go potty in the terminal
My reward for sitting through this? The gate for our flight to Raleigh was right across from the one we arrived at. The last I saw, Mom was telling 5-year old that next time he was going to sit with Daddy.
Yeah, right.
Posted by caltechgirl at June 3, 2005 08:13 PMew...parents like that deserve kids like that.
Posted by: Pam at June 4, 2005 12:04 AMKids know an idle threat when said. Even at 2, my son knows if I mean it or not. I have had to spank him when I really didn't mean for it to be that bad, but told him I would if he did it. Sucks, but I don't want my kids ending up like that. UGH! I am so sorry you had to deal with it.
Posted by: vw bug at June 4, 2005 07:10 AMOh yeah. Kids are definitely the best form of BC. It's clear who was the boss in that family! That's really unacceptable for a 5-year old. Sounds like a VERY long hour!
Posted by: Marie at June 4, 2005 03:15 PMOn a flight to Cincinatti from SFO on my way to Germany, they nice flight attendants decided that the kid flying alone should sit next to the single lady flying alone. ARGH!!!! she was a brat and a half.
Posted by: Ith at June 5, 2005 07:29 PMYour story is exactly why I don't take my kids on planes. My in-laws offered to fly us to kansas this summer and I turne down the tickets. I could just see clone jumping all over the place. If I needed to discipline him I don't want to subject the cabin to a good 30 minute crying/screaming performance. Plus I don't want to hear from other people how "I'm abusing my child".
I had your seat last November on a flight from Chicago to Dallas Fort Worth. *I* however turned around and got on the kid and the parent. The sounds of quiet sobbing from the brat made a relaxing rest of the trip.
Posted by: Contagion at June 6, 2005 12:42 PMLast year, my husband and I flew from Georgia to California (and back again a week later) with our two boys, who were then 5 years old and six months old.
Aside from the six-month-old's impatience with waiting for me to adjust him, baby carrier, shawl, and my shirt so that he could be fed without me flashing the passengers, we didn't have any trouble.
It helped that the five-year-old had his Gameboy with him, and he already knew from previous experience that if he misbehaved, we'd take it away from him.
I wouldn't want to try it again any time soon, though. The younger one is turning out to be much more rambunctious, and less easily entertained quietly, than the older one was.
Posted by: Jenna at June 6, 2005 03:02 PMWe were having a BBQ here in Phoenix that day. As we were in the pool, I felt a powerful disturbance in the Force above us.
Must've been you and the brat, I guess.
Posted by: Scott P at June 6, 2005 07:11 PMFlying from San Francisco to Tokyo, I sat behind a Japanese couple and their son. That’s a long flight; I slept. Suddenly, something seemed, I don’t know, odd. I opened my eyes. No glasses.
The little boy had them, twisting them into Möbius strips, giggling with insane glee. I squinted, took them back, tried to straighten them, and looked at the parents in exasperation. They chuckled, bobbing their heads, and lifting their hands in the air. You know, that what-can-you-do shrug? They gave me that, then they ignored me for the next four hours.
Yet that didn’t deter me. Oh, no. I went ahead and had kids of my own (well, my wife had definite ideas, and I didn’t object). In my heart, though, I know why: Someday, somewhere, I don’t know when, I don’t know how, my children are going to find that family, hopefully on a trans-Pacific flight. Then they will suffer! Oh, how they will suffer.
My children are trained to endlessly recount obscure Star Wars trivia, quote random Terry Pratchett passages, and repeat “King of the Hill” dialogue. And my enemies will suffer! Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Posted by: Daniel Morris at June 10, 2005 09:42 AM
