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!

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In the drivers seat ?

Parent's magazine had an article on the previous issue about the top three mistakes driving mother's make which cause serious accidents or fatalities. These should have been generalized to any person who drives around with kids in the vehicle, because men who drive the "mommy van's" as equally guilty of the same mistakes!

They were :

a. trying to calm down fighting kids by looking back or sending one hand back to touch the kid in the backseat
b. feeding the kid or yourself while driving
c. talking on the cell phone while driving.

Of course we could always add the special case of :

d. trying to operate a DVD player that is behind you with one hand because the kids want you to go back to the previous song!

But these are the standard offenses. This post is not about them. This is about something even more fundamental with kids in a van. The seat belt!

Apparently it is safe for kids only if they are in their car seats or booster seats and nicely buckled up. One can understand this logic, especially with all those videos you see with kid sized crash test dummies flying out of windshields during accidents when not buckled up!

Unfortunately, real kids are not as co-operative as crash test dummies. The day my kids look as calm and serene in their seats, accident imminent or otherwise, I would gladly keep my mouth shut!

In our case, putting the seat belts on is supposed to be safe for the kids, but it is highly unsafe for the driver! Jr. has learnt to unbuckle her seat belt on her own and baby has a tolerance limit of about 5 minutes in her car seat. By the time we reach the end of the street she is screaming her head off trying to get out of the belt. That said, it is impossible to focus on the road and drive, with one kid floating around the van like a free electon in a metal lattice and another one setting new records for the maximum decibel level ever achieved in a confined space of 150 cubic feet or less!

Are there any alternatives to seat belts for kids ? (I am talking legally allowed alternatives here! I already know that they will be quiet without the belts). If anyone knows of any, please do let me know.

In the meantime, I have an idea. How about I make an inflatable cushion that takes the shape of the back part of the van. The kid sits inside this box and it can be padded so well that even if the kid bounces off the walls of this enclosure, they will be safe! I am modeling this based on the space shuttle here!! Would that have a chance of making it through the transport authorities ?

Please note that I said "kid" and not "kids". The only thing more dangerous than a free floating kid in a van is, another kid! There has to be separate enclosures for each kid. If horses, cattle and wild animals can be transported on highways without restraint, why can't I transport two wilder, crazier, out of control creatures with the same rules?

That brings me to the topic of "If my wife or mother-in-law release a kid from the seat, because the kids is making a racket (this in spite of my pleas to keep them in the seat), then who gets the ticket if we are stopped by the cop ? Me, or the wife ? or mother-in-law ? ". If anyone knows the answer to that one, please let me know as well.

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