PRE-FLIGHT AND FLYING (with children) 7 August.

I am now wondering if taking care of all I needed to last night was really the right thing to do. I /was up until about midnight, not really taking care of stuff, but rather double and triple checking the things that I thought I needed, and looking through my bag to make sure that I packed the right socks. But all of that only meant that I didn't get enough sleep last night.

I think that waking up early this morning and never really catching up with my sleep set the tone for the day. It is too easy to write about the experience at the airport (and you can read what I've previously written in my previous travel journals). However, one thing that I think stands out about this particular pre-flight experience is all the parents who were littering the airport with their spawn. Making my way to the gate, one child lie sprawled across the narrow walkway. While waiting at the gate, I sat across the only infant in the area, who had to continuously be walked and carried around by her parents who had to take turns. What would be the odds that the one infant would sit close to me on a plane?

I don't know, and it really isn't that important, because once I was on the plane, all probability is thrown out the window and collapses to 100% when she sat right behind me. My disposition as it is, I could only despair at the forecast of a baby crying the whole way because she doesn't know how to pop her ears when the pressure changes. Perhaps I am lucky that forecast did not come true.

All that said, I am never quite clear about etiquette regarding how to evaluate parents and their infant. Should I welcome breastfeeding in public? I don't know. (And the family being behind me, this didn't really present itself to me, even if the mother had been breast-feeding at some point along the flight.) However, while that issue seems to be debated in public forums frequently, I never hear many discussions regarding changing a baby's dirty diaper in public. Therefore I was at a complete loss as to how I should evaluate the smell of fresh baby poop emanating from behind me as the mother was changing the diaper right at her seat. I wonder how hygienic this sort of behavior is, especially since people will be expected to eat off of this same table on the next flight. It also dawned on me that the two parents were sitting next to an old lady who was not part of their family. If I were sitting right next to them as this was happening, I wonder how I might have responded. (Well, in fact, it was happening right behind my head, and I said nothing). I don't have faith that I would be able to speak the same language as someone who would think that it is acceptable to do that in a setting surrounded by strangers.

One of the ridculous children on the plane, but no the on who pooped behind my head.