"Here is Your In-flight Entertainment; Flying by the Dimensions of the Seats of our Pants"

If you have flown on an airplane before then you may be able to relate to much of what is to come, especially if you have flown with children of any age. However, if you have not flown before, I hope these antics don't discourage you for the adventure that awaits.

Recently, me and my two youngest children, daughter, 14 years old, and son, 12 years old, were traveling down to Texas to visit family for a two week stay. We arrive at the airport, excited with luggage ready to be checked.

There are more self-check kiosks now than actual attendants, which I personally appreciate because I'm not a patient person by nature and move through tasks swiftly. My inpatients, showing off, grew increasingly prominent as I rolled my eyes and allowed my frustration to take over and outwardly exclaim how slow people were at just scanning or inputting their flight information into the kiosk, passing over their bags, and moving on.

Go back in time twelve weeks prior to our vacation, and my daughter had just broken her foot playing floor hockey in PE. Unfortunately, it has rebroken a couple of times and was still hurting some, so she wore her stabilization boot to the airport. The boot provides her with the ability to put weight on her foot while it heals, but airport security doesn't care. As we were loading our carry-on items onto the security belt, shoes and all, the security officer told me that my daughter either needed to remove the boot or they would have to "frisk" her. "Sweetheart, take off your boot and hobble through the scanner, because there will be no "frisking" of my 14-year-old today!" I spoke. She was wearing a short sundress no less.

Now, most airlines have assigned seating, however, there is one in particular that does not and boards the plane utilizing a letter grouping system, so group A, group B, group C, etc. Depending on your letter group you may not have the ability to sit together on a full flight, which ours was. The airport

attendant announces that boarding will begin shortly with "pre-boarding" passengers (people with a physical disability). I looked down at my daughter's booted foot and coyly grinned like the Grinch on Christmas. My son notices my face and without skipping a beat, he hurry's over to the attendant and informs them of his sister's situation. Well, we "pre-boarded" and were able to sit together on both flights going and both flights returning thanks to my daughter's "disability". We took our karma with laughter and grace. Such as, allowing my children to select our seats only to find that we were directly next to the plane's engine and had the pleasure of listening to its roar for the next 4 hours. Such as, the seats being less than the width of my rear end and having to hunch my linebacker shoulders in to keep my elbows from becoming target practice. Such as, the woman sat immediately in front of my son leans her seat as far back as she can and then he proceeds to speak his thoughts loudly stating, "No mam, I don't mind being your rock-a-bye all the way to San Antonio." Insert stunned look of embarrassment that came over my face instantly followed by uncontrollable stifled giggling by him and his sister. He has no filter like his mother, what else can I say. The karma continues. Such as, the airline changing the flight departure time of our connecting flight five times in the span of an hour. It was as if the airline was suffering from ADHD, and we had the chance to experience their mental transitions in real time. It went something like this. "Your 8:05am flight has been delayed to 9:00am." Fifteen minutes later, "your 9:00am flight has been delayed to 9:20am." Ten minutes later, "your 9:20am flight has been delayed to 10:20am." Literally two minutes later, "your 10:20am flight has been delayed to 10:52am and we are very sorry for any inconvenience. Five minutes later, "we have found you a plane and people to pilot it and now you must dash across to the other side of the Baltimore airport because it now leaves from a different gate at 9:00am after all." Luckily my daughter had the luxury of her ruse and was pushed through the airport in a wheelchair. But hey, I got my steps in, and my dad would be proud.

Now fast forward two weeks to our returning flights. My daughter is really working her broken foot charades, so we can board the planes early and sit together. We were eager to take on our next round of karma for our deceitful ways. Such as, the woman sat behind us that sneezed every five minutes for three hours, spouting her snot particles towards our hair, providing us with a true organic hairspray. Of course, she could have been sneezing due to the fact that the pilot insisted on remaining at the very same turbulence altitude for the duration of the flight, because naturally who doesn't like being shaken and not stirred. Turned me the same shade of green as the guacamole I left behind in Texas. Such as, my growing pre-teen son who decided to turn our return trip into an endless traveling buffet. He ate two large breakfast tacos before the flight, a third one he packed in his bag for the flight, ate a whole package of Poptart's that he was supposed to share with his sister. The flight attendants began their in- flight drink and snack service where they passed out small bags of trail mix, which my son ate his, mine, his sister's, and then called the flight attendant over for a 4th bag. We get to Baltimore for the connecting flight and he's still hungry, how I don't know. The only place around us was a pizza place that cost $6 a slice. He ate three and they were huge. My parenting skills continued to be judged by me and everyone around us as the karma continues. Such as, when my daughter was wheeled onto the plane, the attendant asked her what had happened to her foot and then told her that she hopes it was something creative. Well, my daughter didn't miss the creativity opportunity. She stated matter-of-factly, "I fell off my horse while roping cows." My face went white as a ghost, my eyes glazed over, I went completely silent, and my jaw dropped inside my mind, realizing that my daughter has no fibbing game what so ever. Not to mention, convincing my daughter to jump rope is a task in itself, let alone her having the coordination to rope a cow with one while riding her imaginary horse. Did I mention she is 15 years old at this point in our trip due to her celebrating her birthday while we were there in Texas.

Such as, if the lady sneezing on the first flight wasn't bad enough, on the final flight for 45 minutes a young girl behind us went through a long "what if I" list with her mother, causing my kids to cackle like crows non-stop. "Mom, what if I turned into an alligator?" "What if I turned into a whale?" "What if I turned into a shoe?" "What if I turned into a cow or a zebra?" Or "What if the sun ate me?" 45 LONG minutes ya'll! Ready to go home, we didn't wait for them to bring a wheelchair to deplane. We ALL just walked off the plane and the pilot looked at my daughter and said, "you seem to be walking better now." She shyly smiled at me as we walked up the ramp, shrugged her shoulders and said, "Well we're home now." I just lowered my head and kept on walking. To top all this off and to add to our karma, my bag didn't make the flight from Baltimore, and I was left starring at the luggage carousel like a puppy who was missing its toy. They did deliver it to me the next morning though.

Now there are several morals here, but the biggest take aways are to just allow yourself to be silly. Allow yourself to live as long as it's not hurting anyone. And, by all means laugh with and at your kids and do it often because it goes by so fast. There is no perfect parenting, but there are perfect memories.