The worst flight of my life.

I need to spend a few minutes venting. So sorry in advance :) Later on, I will write another entry about other stuff. My kids have been on 14 flights. They are usually pretty well behaved. Last night was the worst flight we have ever been on. Hands down. And my kids were pretty much angels until the last hour. What made the flight so bad were our flight companions. Never before have I been surrounded by so many people who were so strongly opposed to being on a flight with kids. (Even well behaved kids) Neither kid had made a peep yet, and the lady directly in front of me was yelling to people rows up about how lucky they were to be where they are, and "look what I have to deal with" (as she points to my sweet little boy, who is quietly looking around from daddy's arms with his big doe eyes). Then nudged the guy in front of Carlos and said, "I am so sorry for you." As if we couldn't hear her. Before we took off, while waiting to everyone to board, Charlie walked across the aisle to see me, and this lady spun around in her seat and glared at him. Then, he touched the shirt of the guy in front of Carlos, and the lady acted like she was personally offended by it, and in a raised voice scolded Carlos saying, "He needs to be in his seatbelt." Well since he didn't have a seatbelt (as lap infants don't on American Airlines) Carlos just grabbed him back into his lap, and ignored her. And every time Emma made a peep of any kind, or any noise emitted from the iPad, the lady spun around, glared at her, humphed, and shook her head angrily. The tension on that plane was palpable, and Emma could sense it. Eventually a meltdown occurred (as can be expected when you are traveling all day with two kids. And it is 11pm). The guy in front of us had his seat as far back as it could go, and every time that he got bumped, or Emma cried, made a huge spectacle of covering his ears, hitting his head with his hands, and overall being dramatic about how terrible it is to be near a crying kid on a plane. Not to mention the hideous woman ahead of me. At one point, Emma was behind her, and she screamed for the flight attendant that Emma wasn't in her seat belt and she had to move. So he came back and told us that Emma had to get back in her seat. So not helpful. Let me reiterate the fact that both kids were quiet, barely making a peep for about 1 hour and 50 minutes of the 2 hour and 12 minute flight. and people were already shooting us dirty looks. To all of my non-parent friends (and I bet my parent friends will agree with this): Please, please know that the parents of those kids have it worse than you. I know that my kids aren't cute to you. I don't expect you to be excited about flying near them. If I could avoid flying, I would. Trust me. I don't enjoy taking a 2 1/2 year old and 1 year old on a plane. But I have to do it. Would any parent flying with young children like them to be quiet and well behaved the entire flight? YES!!! Do they want to hear their kid cry? Absolutely not! Just know that anyone traveling with young kids is probably dreading it. No 1 or 2 year old wants to be still for hours. And no parent can make them. A parent can only do what they can do to make them behave. We spent all of our time on that plane trying to distract and re-direct energy. Fortunately, Charlie slept. But Emma was tired, and ready to be home, and did not want to be on another plane. She is a 2 year old. She wants what she wants, when she wants it. And last night she didn't want to be on a plane. Flights aren't about giving people the opportunity to relax and get rejuvenated. That is what a spa is for. Flights are to get them where they need to go, and being nasty about the fact that a kid is misbehaving doesn't help anything at all. In fact, all it does is stress out the parents, and make them less capable of handling their child. Watching a person a few rows up pretending to strangle someone, and someone else pretend to stab someone (while your kid is crying) only makes parents more upset, and does not help anything at all. My kid cried for 20 minutes at the end of the flight. Up until that she was quiet, occasionally telling Carlos about the drawing she was doing, or the fruit she was ninja-ing. And on that note, I should mention that parents know their kids. They know which battles to fight, and which ones to let their kids win. The situation with Emma freaking out started when yet another another passenger insisted that we turn off the volume on her game (which was not even at full volume I might add). Obviously tears and fighting ensued. Once Emma started crying, the lady was like, "Oh nevermind... i'll take the ding ding ding instead." Unfortunately by that point it was too late. We knew that it would happen. But until someone insisted that we fight that fight, we were going to let her win it. But we wanted to look like we were playing nice since everyone made it explicitly clear that we were not welcome on the plane. And on that note- I take back my earlier complaint about Colombians always trying to coddle my crying children. I will take that any day of the week. My kids have acted worse on international flights, and NO ONE has ever been rude about it. They may get into your business, and try to be nosy about why your kid is crying, but no one has ever been as rude to me and my family as they were on that flight. And the majority of people in question were FROM CINCINNATI! I like to think that people from here are friendly and understanding. It was disheartening that that kind of attitude was our welcome home. I am sorry, this was very long, and very ranting, and I sound very bitchy. I just needed to vent, and maybe someone who reads this will have a little more sympathy next time they are in that predicament.