Yesterday, after having begged for an aisle seat (I'm pregnant, I told the gate agent, and I, uhm, have to pee. A lot. She smiled.), I found myself exactly where I feared I might: stuck in a middle seat between a whole bunch of elbows.
Yes, it was bad that a three hour flight turned into ten hours plane time (thanks to sitting on the Miami tarmac for three hours, "slowing down air speed to avoid weather" and landing in Philly "to refuel"), but I think all might have been manageable if for the entire ten hours I hadn't been subjected to this conversation by the mother and son in the row behind me:
Mom (wearing turquoise): Alex, you are such a good boy. I'm going to have to tell Grandma how good you've been.
Alex (around 5): I'm a good boy. Right, mama?
Mom: You are the best boy. Grandma is going to be so proud of you. This kind of trip is even hard for grown ups. Even mama is getting frustrated, but you are such a good boy.
Alex: I'm the best boy. Right, mama?
Mom: You are the best boy in the whole world.
Alex: The best boy in the whole world. Right, mama?
Repeat eight thousand times without even being offered a packet of peanuts, and trust me, you'd want to puke in your shoe too. Someone remind me in a couple of years that positive reinforcement need not be radioed to the world. Right, mama?
5 comments:
That would have been the end of me!
10 hours in a PLANE, PREGNANT with that redundant behavior behind me??? UGH!!!
You are way better than I am. I would have jumped out the emergency door, stat! ha!
Right, Nicole. BUT, think about the poor Mama. Do you think she wanted to keep saying "Yes, you are." I would have lost my patience and said "Okay, enough!!! Best boy in the world would not keep saying it over and over.HUSH!!" That little guy over there asleep is the best boy in the world.
MOM
O mom, you have too much compassion! I'm with little miss mel: get me to the emergency exit! Pronto!
I must be a bad Daddy. I tell my kids they're a mix of good and bad, in the hope of keeping them introspective. I'm probably just racking up future therapy bills for them. Where's the parenting emergency exit?
two words: "always keep some benadryl on hand for such occasions." knocking your kids out when they get annoying is one of the secrets of good parenting.
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