Plane Travel With Three Young Boys, The Good - The Bad - And the Fidgety

The last 5 times I traveled on a plane with my young boys, one of my sons needed to wander the isles,  another had a messy diaper to change (and no place to do it) and another claimed the bags of toys were not interesting.  I was busy making balls out of magazine pages, mixing formula and coaxing- begging - pleading the kids to nap. I dreaded our most recent airplane trip even though my twins are now 4 1/2 and my older son is 8 1/2.

To my utter surprise, the boys did great. They loved packing their backpacks with books and their Leapster (educational games are ok... right..).  They sat for long periods of time, only getting up to go to the bathroom. They quietly watched a movie from the laptop computer we brought with us. The flight went well, except for some minor fidgeting by one of my twins and the airplane lady & hubby sitting in front of us who I will un-affectionately call "The Princess and the Pea and her Princey husband".

So I created a new version of the fairy tale "The Princess and the Pea" in honor of the airplane lady sitting in front of us:

"Princess and the Pea was on an airplane cuddling with her hubby when the little sweet peasant boy sitting behind her kicked her seat while fidgeting. She glared a dirty look to the peasant mother, who pleaded that she was doing everything she could. The peasant mother then took off the boys shoes and moved the seat back so that only the tip of his big toe could gently touch Princess and the Pea's seat, which he only did a few times. Princess and the Pea could still feel it and spent the rest of the flight giving the peasant boy and his peasant mother evil looks... The mother happened to be a blogger and was dreaming of the post she would write calling the Princess and the Pea on her nastiness... The mother hoped that the Princess and the Pea did not see the "Silicon Valley Moms Blog" tee shirt she was wearing. Or maybe she hoped the Princess did see it....."

Luckily, the airplane lady did not suggest giving my son Benadryl to stop his mild fidgeting. Because I would have simply replied back that is was HER that needed anti-anxiety medicine.

Beth Blecherman's personal blog is Techmamas, where she blogged about her favorite gadgets to keep kids happy on plane trips. Not one of them being Benadryl.