We were worried that Toren wouldn’t enjoy flying to Utah. While we’re usually pretty tolerant of crying kids on planes, we didn’t want to be “those” people with the really whiny, crying kid. So, we decided we’d spoil Toren and let him sleep on us as much as possible, hoping it would keep him happy. Yeah, um, it worked.
First, we arrived early and asked the person at the gate if there was any chance we could get a row with an extra seat. He initially told us the flight was completely full, but once they started boarding people, he called us up and told us we had our own row – three seats! Yeah for Delta and the gate agent.
Toren got hungry just as we were boarding, so Debi fed him a little before we boarded, then again as we took off. He then promptly fell asleep. He slept for about an hour, then woke up to poop (he still poops loud enough and powerful enough to wake us up sometimes, so no wonder it wakes him up). We then proceeded to change him on the middle seat (during which he still didn’t cry). It made for a memorable scene, though, as his diaper was pretty full. I reached over his head and grabbed his legs, targeting his pooper right at Debi while she wiped him clean. Toren refrained from firing again while free, though, and instead just squirmed a little bit. After he was changed, Debi put him into the position you see below:
He slept like that for the last 3 hours of the flight. The most movement he made was to wiggle his chin deeper into Debi’s cleavage.
I’m guessing there is a whole new business model here: offering seats that include cleavage cuddling! Forget those extra-wide first class seats with nice meals! You could make a killing with seats that offered this feature and call it “Cleavage Cuddling Class”! I should Trademark this! (USPTO, I want a trademark.)
The flight wasn’t completely uneventful. There were two other infants onboard. One was sitting a row behind us on the other side, and another one was a few rows behind us.
The one just behind us had a little adventure before we took off. The mother had purchased two seats, one for her and one for her 6 month old daughter. She had an aisle seat and her daughter was in her carseat in the middle. Another woman was in the window seat. One of the flight attendants saw this and said it was unacceptable. Her reasoning: If there is an emergency, the baby can’t get out, which means the woman in the window seat would be trapped. Ergo, the baby had to be in the window seat. Hmm… The take home message to a new parent: The airlines basically assume that babies are going to die in an accident. That’s kind of disturbing.
The second incident took place towards the end of the flight. The other infant, a few rows back, when into a screaming fit (I’m guessing colic). She screamed at the top of her lungs for about 45 minutes. We felt sorry for both the parents and the baby. But we also were thinking that everyone else on the flight would think it was Toren as they got off. Toren, of course, was innocent, sleeping soundly in his cleavage.
