Friday, April 24, 2009

Traveler Beware

Lily is an infant jet-setter. This kid has 8 stamps in her Canadian Passport and all of which are made possible by airmiles. If you do not have a credit card that lets you earn airmiles I highly recommend signing up for one right now. I digress...

When you travel with an infant alone you receive two different reactions from fellow passengers. The first reaction is that of pity from other people who sympathize with your situation. The second reaction is that of disgust and a little disbelief, ' how dare she bring a baby on our quiet plane.'

On our trip home, earlier in the week, I had the joy of being sandwiched on the plane by both Lily (on my lap) and a rather musky scented man to my left. Earlier in the day I had purchased a pack of California Rolls thinking that my baby would be able to enjoy a little Japanese cuisine for a protein-packed lunch. Lily definitely enjoyed the sushi rolls-probably a bit more than I would have liked. She was determined to shred those little buggers and then throw the imitation crab meat around the plane's cabin. She even offered our musky co-traveler a tasty handful of crab. After a rather heinous trip, I thought that I would offer a couple of key travel trips for traveling with a baby or small child.

1. Bring lots of Crackers. A surefire way to shut up a yelling babe is to offer some tasty treats.

2. Splurge and buy a portable DVD player. Lily is transfixed by her Sesame Street DVD, so I keep it as secret ammunition when I need for her to sit still.

3. Bring earplugs with you. Not for you but for your fellow passengers.

4. Cheap new toys. I have not tried this one yet but I have heard it can be a very effective distraction technique.


Happy Travels!

1 comments:

Tricia said...

oh man, I feel your pain. When I travelled with Hunter the man sitting next to me said "so, a baby?" and I felt like I needed to apologize before we even took off. I did the DVD thing and it worked great!