Turbulence
On traveling with my toddlers
Two weekends ago, I brought my three-year-old on a cross-country flight to California to surprise my sister and her family for my nephew’s birthday. My niece and nephew ran at me, delighted, my nephew shouting "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!", not yet understanding the mechanics of the phrase. My sister blinked, disoriented, for several seconds before freaking out. She loves surprises, and I love my sister. My sister is the person I text every day. To her, I bring every moment of shame and regret, every ugly thought that I want to exist outside of my brain. She is the person to whom the menial details of my day get shuffled, little blue orbs of myself sent across space and time via iMessage. This is to say, she is one of the very few people I’d fly across the country with my three-year-old to see.
Flying with a three-year-old across the country will make you want to shake down some tech bros in Silicon Valley, grab them by the scruff of their startup-branded-quarter-zipped neck, and say: Can your little AI software build a teleportation wormhole yet, bitch? No? I didn’t think so! Go ahead, storm off (as much as you can getting into that Waymo) and think about what you haven’t done.
You cannot wear noise-cancelling headphones while flying with your children. You receive every sigh, every pointed gaze. My son actually did really well. In lots of ways. Sort of. Not really. I’m still recovering. I was asking a lot of him. He melted down so aggressively at one point that I had just to sit quietly and endure. There was no active parenting move that was going to make things better. He screamed and thrashed for about 45 minutes while the plane circled above New York until we touched ground, his wails reduced to hiccups, and passed out as we taxi’ed. An older businessman dad with a frequent-travel-looking-multi-zip-ergonomic-bag told me he remembered those days, that it gets better. I could have smooched him on the lips for his kindness. I was so embarrassed.
Earlier, on that plane, pre-meltdown, I had written in my notes app:
“On a plane — I smell, but my head is full of ideas. We got fancy pastries in Berkeley, and I am still thinking about the lavender shortbread. I could eat a fancy pastry every day for the rest of my life. I am so thankful for life, my god! It pulses through me like I’m on ecstasy at some house music warehouse event in Bushwick. But instead, I’m just on a plane with my son, who is watching Wild Kratts on my pink iPad. Maybe this is what having a kid does to you. You can access rippling love and gratitude without drugs. I am plugged into it. We watched ducks in the duck pond, giggling at them as they dove for food, asses up. The pond is landscaped with big, round rocks. Charlie said, “look, dinosaur eggs”, and patted them carefully, as if they were about to hatch. My life is better with this outlook offered to me on a platter every day. A shot of whimsy to the dome whenever I need it. Maybe it’s the exhaustion, the fully lived days, the unconditional love which leads you into a sort of drug-like fugue state. How am I whisper-yelling ‘YOU DO NOT TALK TO ME LIKE THAT!’ at my toddler one moment, and the next he's whispering ‘elephants have feelings too,’ nodding seriously, and somehow that washes away the whisper-yelling rage entirely?”
This was written before the Big Meltdown™️, after which the well of gratitude felt harder to access. The bucket mechanism to retrieve it all felt a little funky and jagged, the rope a bit squeakier.
And then, this past weekend, we travelled again to St. Louis, to stay with in-laws and attend a family wedding. Both boys in tow this time, for a much shorter flight, but this time with my 22-month-old too, which complicates things. He does not yet respect the rare iPad appearance. The elusive Paw Patrol pups are at your fingertips. On the flight over, he cried on the way up and the way down, which is pretty standard issue, and the lady sitting in front of me had given me a couple of pointed glances over her shoulder until she eventually turned back and said: “You know, they cry on take off and landing cause they don’t know how to pop their ears.” Oh??? I didn’t know that! I somehow made it through years of parenting, never learning of the plane-toddler-ear-phenomenon, and you, you are the first ever prophet. “If you give him something to chew on, it’ll help.” She continued, probably feeling saintly and generous in her grand bequeathing of wisdom. I wish I could have played her the video of the kind businessman receiving his imagined gratitude smooch to help her understand a bit better how to behave in the world. What parenting maneuvers do I have to master to make sure my kids won’t be assholes on planes? That is the unsolicited advice I’d rather receive.
Four flights with my children on consecutive weekends have left me spent, a deflated balloon. But between all of the cross-country shuffling, in between all of the meltdowns and turbulence, so much joy. My husband in a tux and a lychee cocktail at my friend’s bar and sea lions piled on top of each other at Fisherman’s Wharf and tiny fried cinnamon-sugar donuts sold in buckets. Cousins shrieking, pretending to be dinosaurs, hugging each other goodbye. A gondola ride above the Oakland Zoo, reverent silence as he peered down at the animals below us. Camels, he whispered, seeing their humps from the sky. It’s like we’re birds, I told him, and his eyes were big, nodding, yes. Yes, mommy, it’s like we’re birds.
Because of all of this, I want to go everywhere. I want to zig-zag across our country, across the world with them. And. I never want to be on a plane with them ever again.
A little note of self-promotion!
I am starting Bookstoop, a community book club for moms and friends. I will be hosting physical book clubs in NYC, but I will also be using this Substack to write more about reading, writing, and books. I did not cross over my subscriber list from here because I find that annoying, but if you are interested in more book-forward content, I would be utterly chuffed if you gave it a follow! Read more about it here:
Omg, the "what's the advice to make sure my kid's not an asshole on a plane" SO TRUE