Evil Eye

It only took 4 months for me to become that person I used to make evil eyes at. You know the one. The one with the screaming child on the airplane. When J was 10 weeks old we took him to San Diego. He slept the entire plane ride there and back, take off to landing and didn't wake up until baggage claim. All around us on that flight other babies made their protestations known. Our seat-mates smiled at J and said, "what a wonderful baby!" Even though deep down I knew that our time would come and our Dr. Jekyll baby traveller would morph into Mr. Hyde, I was holding on to the hopes that it would be a good long while.

Fast forward to this past weekend. I decided to venture into the world of solo parenting, and took the little man to Phoenix for his cousin's 1st birthday party. The plane ride down was a repeat of our first trip oh-so-many weeks ago: sleeping by take off, roused only after touch down, and nary a stir during the terrifying turbulence that had me clutching the leg of a very nice man sitting next to me (at one point during the jerking and sudden losses of altitude with wide eyes I asked my kind neighbor, "Do you think it is going to be ok?!?" I was convinced we were moments away from plummeting to our deaths).

We had a lovely weekend of quality family time. The cousins now seem to notice each other, and we all got a kick out of the 1 year old testing out his new Frankenstein walk towards the "baby". Less fun was the little man's sleeping pattern. We had finally made it past his crazy diarrheal illness of previous weeks and the resulting havoc it reeked on his ability to sleep for more than 3 hours straight. The week prior to our travel we were back on track with a lovely early bedtime at 6:30 pm (read: parental time to breathe and eat, sorely missing from our lives over the past 4 months), and a 3 am feeding. Now, that schedule I can deal with.

Our new on the road schedule was characterized by a lack of lengthy naps and more night time awakenings than I care to report. But all in all the weekend was a blast. We boarded our fight back to Seattle both content and tired, and me convinced he would nap the entire 2 hr 45 min plane ride back.

Well, little man had other plans, namely an inablilty to fall asleep (well, in his defense I had like 10 inches of space to try to soothe him and get him to sleep. Less than ideal.). After attempting to feed him twice with minimal success and managing to cover myself and him in breast milk (could planes be any less accommodating for breast feeding? and diaper changing?), changing his diaper twice in the vain hope that that would solve the problem, he proceeded to completely melt down. He was uber exhausted and so wound up he just wouldn't give in to sleep. I paced the aisle way, bounced him on my lap, tried the pacifier 50,000 times, all with minimal success. A kind gentleman across the aisle from us even got out his smart phone and opened up some apps with bright flashing colors. To his credit, this actually helped briefly.

As we were pacing, I noticed a woman in her mid 60s a few rows ahead of us giving us the stink eye. I averted my eyes in an attempt to avoid glaring back at her. A few minutes later after we had sat back down, the same woman approaches us.

"Hiiiii" she says in a sugary sweet calm voice. "I'm a nurse."

I immediately scan the little man, concerned he is having some major medical issue like hemorrhage that I've somehow managed to overlook. Nope, he looks just fine to me. Just really freakin' tired and cranky.

"I'm wondering if perhaps your baby is hungry?"

It took me all of 30 seconds to recover from the shock of this statement. My reply:

"Well, I'm a doctor. And no, he is not hungry. I have fed him twice in the past 2 hours. He's just tired and having a hard time sleeping on this plane."

Her reply: "Well, maybe if you fed him..."

Um... is this seriously happening? Is she actually concerned that my child is starving, may wither away in flight, and I somehow hadn't thought to feed him? Or does she just want me to stick my boob in his mouth to shut him up? Because the two times I tried that, he sucked until I had let down, then pulled off, spraying everything in a 6 in radius around us, which in my opinion is less than good. And potentially a bio hazard.

My retort: "No. He is tired."

She retreated to her seat, defeated. Incensed, I continued my pacing and bouncing routine, then as predicted, once we started our descent, the little man finally succumbed and fell asleep. On the ride home he crashed hard in the car seat, prompting us to drive around for an hour an a half to avoid any premature awakenings.

It was quite an adventure. It is just me, or was that woman completely out of line? Regardless, we survived the ordeal relatively unscathed (well, little man's sleeping schedule is still whack, and I came down with a nasty viral gastro that evening, causing 24 hours of fever, chills, diarrhea, and vomiting - fun!). But most importantly, I have vowed now to avert my evil eyes when neighboring children decide to scream an entire plane ride. For now.