The One Where All The Bad Happened

So, right. Flying with kids and stuff. I have started to come to the realization that despite any and all planning; despite trying to foresee problems, tantrums and triggers; despite all of it - - -I am still the mother of a 2 year old. And a very spirited  two year old at that.  There are going to be times when the perfect storm of tiredness, overstimulation, and the Terrible Two's join forces to change my child from his usual funny, happy self to a demon in need of a serious exorcism.


You can probably tell by this point that the flight home from South Carolina did not go well.

To start the story, we had woken up that morning around 7 am. Not terribly early, but earlier than his usual routine. (I should also mention that while Boston averages 11-12 hours of sleep a night with a 2 hour nap, during the trip he whittled that down to 5-7 hours of sleep a night and no nap. awesome.) We got everything packed, loaded the cars and we were off. We spent a few hours shopping before leaving Myrtle Beach and making the drive to the Charleston airport.

The first flight Boston did fairly well.  He whined a little about wearing his seatbelt, but was distracted easily enough that nobody got hurt. We ended up waiting in the Chicago airport for a little over 2 hours due to a delayed flight, which gave him the chance to run around, expel some energy, and eat.

The flight into SLC started off fine. A little while after takeoff we could tell he was starting to get tired and fidgety, so we tucked his blanket around him, turned off the lights above us, and started a movie on the tablet. He was calming down and really starting to get sleepy. The flight attendant stopped by to get our drink orders, where we ordered Boston an apple juice.

A few minutes later she returned with our drinks. She handed me mine. She handed Jason his. She went to hand Boston his, but instead bumped the tray. A cupful of icy apple juice landed directly on Boston's head, sending ice cubes and apple juice all over him. She gasped and made a semi-lunge to catch the falling cup, wherein she spilled the rest of the conents on her tray (more apple juice, more ice, and soda) all over Jason, me, Boston, and the feet of the row behind us.

Ya'll. Do you know what happens to an almost-asleep 2 year old when doused with icy juice? Have you ever tried to baptize a cat in an ice bucket? Imagine, if you will, that 2 year old clawing his way up and out of his seat, wild eyed, half screaming, half crying, all in all losing his ever loving mind.  Not to mention everything within a 3 foot radius is also cold, wet and quickly becoming very sticky.

Jason and I jumped into action to try to bring some semblance of order back to our row before people started throwing holy water on the demonic being occupying seat 14F.  I pulled out Boston's spare clothing bag and started undressing him, while ice cubes are falling out of his diaper and apple juice is still dripping off his chin. He was still in a state of WTF JUST HAPPENED?! and did not appreciate my trying to get him out of wet clothes. Jason was literally holding his arms and legs down while I tried to force clothing onto them. He was screaming that he wanted his blankie - which I gave to him - then re-freaking when he realized it, too, was freezing cold and saturated.

I'm going to interject the story here to share one fatal error made on my part. I have gotten into the habit of using salesmen, clerks, waitresses, and FLIGHT ATTENDANTS as a sort of threat to keep Boston behaving appropriately in public. He is very much in the "leery of strangers" phase and I completely use this to my advantage. It is not rare for me to threaten, "You better sit down or that cashier is going to be very mad!" or "Oh no! Hurry and buckle your seatbelt or that lady (flight attendant) is going to take you away and you will be in trouble!" I had used this several times on all flights on this trip, so he probably didn't have the greatest opinion of the otherwise very nice flight attendants.

Back to the story. She felt awful for spilling on us and kept reappearing at the most inopportune times to apologize profusely and ask if there was anything she could do to help. At one point we had gotten Boston's crying down to a whiny whimper and were trying to talk him into sitting back down to watch his movie again. She came back with a beaming smile saying, "I know how I can help! I'll take him with me and we will walk around the plane and see all the cool things while you guys get situated!"  Putting her brilliant plan into action, she reached down and picked Boston up by the arms.

I'm sure you can deduce by now why the backstory of the Evil Flight Attendants was necessary.  That child lost his shit so fast she probably thought she electrocuted him with merely her touch. He was in full on meltdown mode. Screaming, crying, clawing, kicking, you name it. Jason and I sat there with him shrieking and flailing between us, mouths agape, staring at each other in horror. His freak out of course woke up Maia, who was dead asleep through most the debacle. She started screaming to match him, and life as we know it ended.

Long story long, he eventually did stop trying to kill everyone around him and fell into a fitful, whimpery sleep. He woke up several times throughout the remainder of the flight (it was probably around 10 pm when The Evil started, we landed around 12?) crying and we would have to calm him back down.

People that I told the story to in the days following asked how long the actual tantrum lasted and honestly - I have no idea. It was so horrible, so loud, so cold and wet and  embarrassing that I literally had zero concept of the time that elapsed. I know he sat (ha. flopped. flailed? exploded?) there screaming bloody murder for what felt like FOREVER after she tried to pick him up.

You know when you have a really bad experience, and you talk about it and moan over it and swear that it was so awful you will NEVER forget how terrible it all was....and then a few months later you somehow convince yourself that it really wasn't *that* bad and you could probably do it all again if you had to, and maybe you're even somehow grateful for the experience because it made you a better/stronger person?

Nope. Not this time.