When our 4 year old decided to throw his orange across the aisle to hit his sister on the head (narrowly missing a passenger). Prompting the person in front of him to ask the flight attendant to give our kids valium (when he ordered his bloody mary). When I apologized to the passenger and flight attendant, several people overheard me and told me what a bad mother I was and “how dare I take 4 kids on a plane!” Needless to say, it was a while before we took a plane ride again.
When my husband and I were were flying on a company ticket in first class to Europe from the states, we had a 1 and 1/2 year old (you can imagine the looks from fellow passengers in this elite section of the plane when we boarded). After 7 hours of flying, our 1 year old was hungry – AND as the flight attendant proceeded to eat her meal, she told us there was no more food on the plane and we needed to wait the additional 4 hours to get her something to eat. This followed her rude comments about changing a diaper mid-flight in our sleeper seats since the bathrooms were full. Lovely.
I dress my kids to match (I have 3 boys) so they don’t get lost in the airport (good tip someone gave me).
Once on a long trip to see my parents, my 3 year old son proceeded to get sick the minute we got on the plane and started throwing up (first in the barf bag). Since my husband had to cancel at the last minute, I was with alone with 3 boys ages 3,4 and 7, trying to attend to the 3 year old in the bathroom. Fortunately we had nice people around us who were parents and understood but when my 4 year old tried to find me and forced a woman to spill her coffee all over her lap, it was a nightmare. Thankfully she was nice and while I tried to pay for her dry cleaning bill she wouldn’t let me.
The joys of traveling with kids!!!
I posted a little contest recently (http://wanderlustandlipstick.com/blogs/wandermom/2008/09/23/how-to-avoid-crawling-under-airplane-seats/).
To win, I invited readers to post their best/worst/funniest airplane-with-kids stories.
Check it out: you’ll be amazed at all the different stories
My worst experience wasn’t on the plane…we didn’t even get to board!
I was stuck in security for so long, with two children ages 1 and 4, that there was a gate change while in there. If I had taken a second to check, we might have made it but I didn’t and paid the price. They left without us.
We were able to take another flight 4 hours later, going through the East Coast. That adds flight time and it was winter. We landed in D.C. to find out that an earlier San Francisco had cancelled and the one we were going to take was overbooked. They even gave us a hotel voucher, they were so sure we wouldn’t get on but somehow they did manage it. I overheard someone on the radio talking about a mother alone with two kids having flown in from Europe where she had been bumped…