O' Canada....

So we made it to Canada safe and sound and in one piece. However the flight was THE most miserable flight I have ever been on in my entire life.......

We get to the San Fransisco Air Port just fine thanks to my wonderful friend Lani. Who awoke early (and being quite ill) still drove us to the air port. I LUV U LANI!! So that was fairly uneventful. The line to the ticket counter was pretty long, but not a big deal since I still had to make out a large number of those fun little airline luggage tags with our new house address instead of the old one. After that we went through security yet again uneventful. After having a bit of a wait, we gathered our children, our carry ons and boarded the plane. *sigh* we were all finally settled into our seats and Christian was so completely mesmerized by the planes that it took up most of his time (yiiipppeeee). Right after take off the elderly gentleman in front of me and his wife decide to recline their seats back alllllll the way. Now we aren't on one of the newer types of planes we are on the old ones, that they haven't removed three rows of seats to make extra room for people. So its extremely cramped. I'm sitting sideways so I wont keep bumping his seat and so I can talk with the kids. Tom is sitting in the aisle seat behind us. So I bring out the laptop so the kids can start zoning out to a movie and we can all have some peace and quiet and just maybe I can start reading my new book I bought at the airport gift shop. Its a fourth book by Jennifer Weiner, my favorite author. My sister Mim and I are both obsessed, and now I'm trying to hurry through the book so she can take it on her honeymoon.

Anyway, as we are sitting there quietly watching Aladdin. I notice a bit of noise coming from the seats in front of us. As I look up the elderly lady ahead of us is shaking her finger back in our direction. As I'm noticing this she starts to yell "stop kicking the back of my seat I'm trying to sleep". At this point I'm thinking if she doesn't calm herself down shes going to stroke right out of her skin. I apologize and tell her my 4 year old is behind her. I proceed to look down and caitlins legs are under her bottom in her chair. Well obviously shes not kicking the seat. So I politely explain that shes not kicking her seat. Now her husband starts to scream, "you are kicking the seat and damn it I paid for my seat and I wont put up with this nonsense" Now I'm getting furious. I paid for 4 seats, who cares, it doesn't obligate me or anyone else no matter how many seats they purchase to have a luxury flight on a freaking 10th century air vessle that everytime you hit turbulance you think your going to fall out of the sky. So my response is, well I apologize and simply state, "if you insist on reclining your chairs back as far as they go your bound to get bumped, there isn't much leg room", not even for my 18 month old son whose feet are touching the back of the seat(no one was sitting in front of him). He proceeds to scream louder and get madder, and tells me " I need to use my head and get control of my kids, and he's not going to take this type of behavior from anyone because he bought a ticket". Apparently they've never flown in an airplane before....

Long story short, the lady a row ahead of us confronts him and asks him if he wants to change seats with her. He refuses. I was trying not to laugh because she was so annoyed with him. She actually said, "well if its going to make you happy then you should move." I was so thankful for that lady, because I replayed the situation over and over in my head to figure out what I possibly could have done to make the situtation more enjoyable for us all, and it turns out there was nothing. They were going to complain no matter what. Later in the flight the sweet lady actually walked to the back of the plane where I was resting with christian (in an empty row) to tell me how discusting she thought the whole situation was and that she was sorry it happened. It was a great gesture and I appreciated her support so much.

As we were preparing to excit the plane, I looked at both of my children thinking, "it could be worse they could have been crying and screaming, but instead they were acting like perfect angels." At one point my daughter did say to the couple, "hey leave my mom alone." I was so proud of her, not only because she was so well behaved, but because she loved me enough to stand up for me.....at the age of 3 1/2. She has such a strong and loving soul. I couldn't be prouder or more in love with her. Shes amazing.

I dont know what possesses people to confront parents who take their children out to public places and who think that if you have children, you should hold up in your house until they are of a "reasonable age" (whatever that is). This is the 3rd instance where someone has approached us negatively about our kids. But I wont let that stop us from continuing our family trips or our family nights out, or whatever it is we decide to do. All those kinds of people can just **** off. :)

So the second portion of our flight was miserable because our children screamed the entire flight. *sigh* I felt for those people on the leg off the flight. But I mean what do you expect when your kids have been up since 6:30am and have been traveling all day and naps were basically obsolete. *shrug* we do our best, and theres always going to be an unhappy child on an airplane. Think about how uncomfortable you are, and how crabby some of those people are when you get on a plane. So imagine that from the eyes of a child. So if you want luxury travel.........I highly recommend you NOT travel via an airplane. :)