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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Vadivelu revisted ?

Recently a video was chosen (not by me) from the local Indian Grocery store for the usual weekend viewing.

This one said "Vaigaipuyal Vadivelu acting superbly in 9 roles"!

Vadivelu is by far the reigning comedian in Tamizh movies today. He has become increasingly popular in the last three or four years. We had never heard of him doing 9 roles in any movie.

Once the wife and MIL started watching this movie, they were in for a rude shock.
Vadivelu was not the main focus of the movie. At least not in the first 20 minutes. They got sick of it and returned the movie.

I have selected a few bad movies in the past. Looks like my track record has improved, just because I did NOT select "Thesiya Paravai"!!

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8 things that I didn't know about me!!

Recently UTBT tagged me. What is the fun in writing about 8 things you didnt know about me ? What with my blog opening up my life to the whole world with all the recent happenings! As for things in my past, people know what they need to know! So I will let sleeping dogs lie. But the tag still appealed in some way. So to make things more fun, I am writing about 8 things that I did not know about myself (or chose to act like I did not know).

and YES. This has gone through the wife's certification process..

1. I snore, apparently!!

2. Have some selective vision for detecting hot chicks, or in general any women showing skin even if they are behind me.

3. Have selective hearing as well. I can hear TV:Crying kid with a ratio of 10^14:1

4. I am incapable of disciplining my kids because I am not disciplined myself!

5. Take big risks all the time and claim that I am averse to risk!

6. Think I talk to strangers, but invariably they have some connection.. (update, It has been proven that I do talk to strangers.. Total Strangers!).

7. I am a perfectionist full of flaws! (I did not know if that was a compliment. Still figuring that one out).

8. I have a tendency to change myself to compensate for the wife! This is hard to believe, but the example given was that I used to eat Italian, Mexican, Chinese food when I was just married and San did not eat them. When San slowly started eating all kinds of cuisine, I stopped eating out and restricted myself to Indian food only!! This last point is still being contested as due to my discovering food allergies and going with home cooked food for the most part.

As usual, this tag stops here!

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