Hmmm. Let me think about this. How about when your baby is screaming her head off on a transcontinental flight and people on the flight, who were staring at you out of curiosity when you got on the plane, are now all GLARING at you. And those eyes continue to watch you as you walk her up and down the plane, desperately trying to get her to stop screaming.
So, can you tell our flight did not go well? It went horribly! And that is despite Maya being an experienced world traveller with six transcontinental flights already under her belt, which all went totally smoothly, by the way. Not to mention the gazillions of other non-trancontinental flights she's been on. Plus, we were so well prepared for this trip. She had her own personal backpack -- with a cute kitty sewn onto it. And we filled her backpack with little goodies that she had never seen before -- a little shape sorter, a magnadoodle, stickers, a couple matchbox airplanes, a Little People car, some cute bandaids to play "ouchie" with, plus a paint-by-water book and a paintbrush. We brought her Pooh bear and Lalla, of course. We brought snacks. We brought her two favorite board books. But it was still a total disaster. Here's what happened.
The first flight to Paris went pretty well. Maya was happy and contented and played with her toys. We held out most of the new toys for the second leg, knowing it would be longer. We told Maya that after we got off the flight we would have some time to run around and then we would get onto another flight. And when that flight landed, we would see grandma.
But the Paris airport is a nightmare!! Even though we had a 2-hour layover, and our flight from Cairo landed on time, we still nearly missed our flight to New York. We actually had to take three separate buses inside the airport to get to our gate.
First, we took a flight from our plane to the gate. Flights from Egypt never get to go direct to the skyways -- because European immigration officials feel they have to check passports as people get off the plane to block "asylum seekers". And they had also previously "disinfected" our plane in Cairo WHILE WE WERE ON BOARD!! They sprayed a chemical into the air that smelled awful and made Maya cough. I guess they think that coming from Egypt we must be "dirty". I could write a whole post about how offensive that is!!
Anyway, of course we had been seated at the back of the plane and had Maya so we were almost the last ones off. And since they were checking passports it took forever to get inside the airport. As soon as we got inside we checked our gate for the next flight and were directed to take a bus to a different terminal. We went down to wait for the bus, but of course we missed the first three buses because there were so many people waiting. Finally we got on a bus and had to circle the entire airport, dropping people off at their "stops" before we got to our terminal. By this time we were starting to feel pressed for time, but weren't too worried. So we went to looking for our gate, following the signs, which led us to a security point. We went through security and found ourselves waiting for yet another bus, which was empty. But the driver didn't want to leave until the bus was full. By this time we had only 15 minutes until take-off and were in a dead panic. Finally the bus left, going past all the same places we passed on our previous bus ride. We reached our destination and ran off the bus, scrambled up the escalator, and finally reached our gate. We got to the gate just two minutes before our scheduled takeoff time, and were pretty much the last passengers to board the plane. It was unbelievable.
Maya of course was mad because we had told her she would have some time to run around at the airport, and instead she just got rushed around in our arms -- since we had checked our stroller all the way through to New York.
So anyway, Maya was at first content to play with the touchpad screen on the seatback in front of us to make the pictures change, and to move the little cupholder back and forth. But then the evil lady in front of us gave Maya an evil little look and complained that "your child is pushing my seat". B****!! Please, I mean it's not like she was kicking the seat or anything, and it was a touchpad screen and Maya was not pressing it that hard. I was so irritated. I should have just ignored that stupid lady and let Maya continue to play with the screen, but of course I told Maya "No". Well, shortly after that Maya started crying hysterically and that lasted for at least four hours. Seriously if anyone complains again about that, I'm going to tell them that if they don't want to be bothered by a child sitting behind them then maybe they should buy a business class seat where the distance between the seats is enough that you don't have to restrain your child in a straitjacket to get them to not touch the seat!
Anyway, Maya was crying and would not stop. And she kept shouting: "Plane down". She wanted to get off the plane so badly and there was just nothing we could do to calm her down. Eventually we just took her to the back of the plane and held her because she would not tolerate being in the seat.
Finally she calmed down a little and fell asleep for about an hour. Then woke up and started screaming all over again that she wanted "down, down, down". Then about 3 hours before we landed she all of a sudden decided that she was going to stop screaming, and she played happily with her little bag until falling asleep about a half hour before landing.
But the whole time was just awful. I really felt like people thought that Maya didn't know us, we were kidnappers who had stolen her from her rightful parents -- because she was screaming so much and a "real" parent should be able to calm their child. I felt like people thought we were bad parents, parents who can't control their child, etc. Or that we should have drugged her to make her sleep, or who knows what else. Plus even before the screaming started, everybody was already staring at us and I felt so self conscious. Aaaah!
Nobody was sympathetic at all except one of the flight attendants who told us she also had a two-year-old and so could relate, and gave Maya like 15 toys to try to calm her down.
Anyway, Maya is a happy little baby today in Albany -- you'd never know it was the same child. She is taking a mid-morning nap and has already had tons of fun playing outside on very cool climbing toys that were waiting for her. And this afternoon she is going to bake some cookies with grandma.
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