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by Won Kim

Nothing strikes greater fear to a parent than traveling cross-country on a plane with a small child. No matter how much you prepare for the voyage, there's no way to predict delays, turbulent patterns, passenger temperaments, and the most volatile of all subject matter-your own kid. 

I've only traveled a few times on a plane with my son, but each time has brought its own story. Our very first flight took place when my son was still a young baby. He slept throughout the flight, and when it did appear as if he was stirring from his sleep, we would quickly place a bottle in his mouth to soothe him back to slumbering bliss. We went on another flight when he was around six months old, and once again, my son came through with flying colors (pun intended). In fact, our neighboring passengers and the flight attendants commented on how well-behaved our baby was.

Somehow, my son tricked me into believing that he was the perfect in-flight baby. Then Thanksgiving rolled around. By this time he was nearing 12 months in age, which meant the practice of placing a pacifier or bottle in his mouth would only have a lasting effect of 15 minutes, tops. This meant we would have to bring a bag-full of weapons to distract him from becoming "that" inconsolable baby on a plane. Our arriving flight to St. Louis went without any hiccups. During the takeoff time (when all electronic devices are rendered useless), we kept our son's attention fully occupied with various baby books, toys and Cheerios. Soon enough, the pilot announced the wonderful words of, "Now feel free to turn on any electrical devices and to move around the cabin." With a trigger hand that would make Wyatt Earp jealous, I cranked on our portable DVD player and voila, there were those lovable Baby Einstein puppets. Not only was my son completely engaged for the rest of the flight, but according to experts of the Baby Einstein products, my son just got a boost in his cognitive development.

I was so proud of my little guy. I felt like my son could travel to the moon and back without a glitch. Those sentiments would quickly change on our flight leaving St. Louis, or as NASA would say, "... we've got a problem."

The flight hit a rough patch early, with our plane sitting still on the takeoff lane for nearly 45 minutes. Because the pilot didn't know if we would be the next plane taxied to the front of the line, all passengers had to comply by the "sit back in your seats with all electrical devices turned off." Fortunately, between my wife and I, we were able to entertain our little guy for the full 45 minutes. However, by then, we had completely exhausted our resources of baby books, toys, in-flight magazines and impromptu battle of the Animal Crackers.

Once in the air, we loaded up the DVD player, which thankfully employed the attention of our kid. A couple hours later, I checked my watch and calculated that about 30 minutes remained in our flight. Already our flight had taxed us for 45 extra minutes, but I was grateful to be landing soon. Little did I know, Newark airport had plans to give us 80 minutes of bonus time.

Almost as quickly as our pilot told us to "turn off all electrical devices and put your seats in the upright position," he came back on the plane's PSA system to quickly state, "Newark airport has told me there is some airplane congestion, so we're going to circle around once and see if we don't get a more favorable report."

What we all hoped would be one circle became two, then three, then four, and then I lost count. Soon, my wife and I were entrenched in an all out battle to keep our hungry, uncomfortable baby from completely losing it. Electrical devices could not be used, so we started recycling our baby books, toys, in-flight magazines and miscellaneous items from my wife's tote bag

Then I smelled it. My son had just laid a bomb on the plane. Okay, I know it's not politically correct to use the b-word in conjunction with an airplane, but there's no other way to describe what my son did in his diaper. I'm almost positive that his diaper would have been considered some type of chemical weapon. As soon as I stood up to take him to the bathroom, the flight attendant signaled for me to sit down as the seatbelt sign was still illuminated. However, when she saw the look on the faces of the passengers seated near us, she quickly signaled my release to the bathroom.

You know the saying, "When it rains it pours," well, it started to pour. See, my wife had packed three diapers in our tote bag, and unfortunately our son was wearing the third diaper. Once in the small lavatory, I quickly transformed into the dad-version of MacGyver. I took off the diaper and proceeded to wipe all of the "stuff" off into the toilet. I did the best I could to rebuild a dirty diaper into something that could be used again with some level of effectiveness. I used toilet paper as extra lining for the diaper, and placed some additional toilet paper in the most-likely-to-be-hit-again areas. It had to be the worst makeshift diaper known to man, but with a squirmy-on-the-verge-of screaming-his-head-off baby balanced atop a tiny diaper station, I think I did well.

I exited the restroom with a baby wearing a partly-soiled diaper in my arms. My wife took one look at my face and realized that I had just journeyed into the land of Mordor and survived. Sitting with the little guy on my lap, I prayed under my breath for a quick end to this flight. Almost as soon as I prayed that, I heard the pilot over the PSA say, "Good news, we've been given the green light. We should be landing in 20-25 minutes." Ah yes, we would come out of this flight unscathed.

But as quickly as my mood turned into joy, my little guy completely lost it. I try not to think too much about those last 25 minutes, but it was one of the most uncomfortable episodes in my life. My son screamed bloody murder for the full 25 minutes as my wife and I played hot potato with his flailing body. Some passengers looked away as if embarrassed for our predicament, and some stared directly at us with a look of utter aggravation. Even a couple flight attendants swung by our seats to see if there was anything they could do to help. I reminded them that I never pressed the flight attendant button, and unless by help they meant they could land this plane right now, none of their niceties were of assistance.

Obviously we survived the flight, but without some level of scarring. For the next year following that episode, we completely stayed away from flying. It wasn't until our son turned two and a half did we venture on another plane. In case you were wondering, he seems to enjoy riding on a plane.

My theory about that terrible flight is simple: the actual trip of the flight was two hours longer than planned, we were one diaper short and we didn't have him sucking on a pacifier which would have eased the air pressure in his ears. I think if we had another attempt at it, our memory of that day might be easier to swallow.

Still, there was an important lesson from that flight: what goes up must eventually come down. In other words, no matter how horrible your in-flight experience may be with your kid, try to focus (while it is happening) on the fact that you will eventually get off the plane and reach your destination. Unless of course, it's a connecting flight.