Flying with kids..

In a recent post on kids travelling under constraints, a couple of links were pointed out to me by s.b. These links were good, really good!

Here is how we manage the kids during our flights. We do not let them float in the aisle. We did have two other kids walking up and down on their own constantly, during our last flight. One of the kids actually stopped by for almost 20 minutes near our seat and I was holding his hand so that he wont fall down. Eventually his mom came and took him back to the seat! We do let the little one out of her seat, but she is confined to our row, and sometimes I carry her up and down the plane.

We do not let them open the door hatch! Jr. is entertained extremely well by San and her mom, by teaching all kinds of grandma games on the flight!

This one is Dosai amma Dosai! (Dosa is a south Indian Crepe and amma is mommy).

It goes

Dosai amma dosai
arisi maavum ulutha maavum kalandhu potta dosai
ammavukku 4
appavukku 3
baby-kku 2
Jr. ukku 1
suda suda suttu
neiyla thottu
vayaru romba saapidalam!

(translation)

Dosa mommy Dosa
crepe made by mixing rice flour and lentil flour
mommy gets 4
daddy gets 3
baby gets 2
I get 1
hot hot and fresh
clarified butter dipped
lets eat till our stomach is full!

This goes on for 15 minutes before they switch to ice-cream soda!! Or I play "find that word on this page" with the in-flight magazine.

Point is, our kids are equally cranky, but we deal with a lot less negativity.

I have been thinking of starting a kid friendly airlines!!

1. I will have wide aisles for kids to run around
2. the walls will be painted with Disney , Sesame street, Barney, Dora characters.
3. I will hire daycare teacher turned air-hostesses or air-hostesses turned daycare teachers only!
4. Will not have any carbonated or sugary drinks on the flight that would make the kids hyper.
5. There will be little tables in the middle of the plane and little kid chairs where they can draw, paint etc., once the seat belt sign is removed!
6. There will be music and videos for the kids to be distracted.
7. There will be little beds for them to sleep comfortably instead of trying to lie down horizontally between daddy and mommy with those annoying arm rests pulled up halfway!
8. All adults who board will be asked a few extra questions.
a. do you like kids ?
b. did you let your kids put things in your bag without your knowledge ?
c. do you think kids should be allowed to travel on planes ?
a "NO" answer for any question will promptly trigger a cavity search by airport security and they will not be allowed to board the plane.
9. Instead of the pathetic paper barf bags, there will be a button next to the seat marked "V" which automatically drops a bucket from the top compartment. That way you can save yourself an inflight shirt change!
10. there will be a diaper change area and some special diaper trash containers. Have you ever tried pushing a full diaper into the small rectangle which says "trash" on local flights?

I have a lot more ideas for this plan, but don't want to get carried away! Damn, I already thought way too much about this. Now all I need is some nice billionaire to loan me some money to start Babiaire / Littlewings or Kidsfly Airlines!

Hope this inspires some other parents to control their kids during flights!

.

Comments

[Anonymous]

sundar:

could you please post a step-by-step guide to creating videos and putting them on youtube? what kind of equipment you use etc.

were you using different equipment on your recent yellowstone trip, because it appeared that the quality was not as good as your other videos (or is it just because of the way nature videography is), notwithstanding that some shots were from a moving car?

- s.b.

p.s.: my kids are much better behaved on flights - it is inside cars that there are issues!

[Sivajini]

Sundar annah, do you think one billion will be enough?

It would be a 'family' plane right?
So from what your saying, your airhostess need to at least have a degree in eary childhood education or you could even have child psych degree...adada... Well at least you'll be opening up a new job market. Lol.

P.s what's up with kids these days? All you had to do was give me the toy airplane, or if I was being particularly charming, the air hostesses in the past have found me spare seats and given me colouring sheets and a nice colorful blanket and I was happy. And then once I got older( 8-10 years old) I was allowed to bring books and then ofcourse there was always meeting the different grandma's of different races who would want to know stories about yourself and then tell stories about their grandkids...

I always remember plane rides as a pleasant experience, your post is really opening my eyes to the 'joys' and tribulations of long-in-the-future parenthood!

[Kavi]

So there ! There goes the dosai limmerick that i have been looking for !

I never knew they sang it so close to the moon !! ( It used to be sung to me under the moonlight !!)

[visithra]

ooohhh i only have one question what is junior doing under there??

[Kodi's Mom]

came by thru indianmommies.
what abt little play areas? just having one or two slides or tunnels like ppl have in their backyard will make a lot of difference...i sooo wished for this during my 9+8 journey back from homeland.
btw, copyright your ideas and sell them to kingfisher airlines...they seem to the friendliest of the lot so far..
http://desimomzclub.blogspot.com/2007/05/why-you-should-try-kingfisher.html