I have some serious amounts of back-posting to do, but it's January 3rd so let's start with a beginning:
Nava and I spent the 31st flying from Dallas to Vienna via London, while Alex flew on a separate itinerary via Frankfurt. Our airplane was packed nearly as tightly as our suitcases full of Christmas largesse. I had a little cold but Nava, with her babyish immune system, was sick as a dog: ripe cough, runny red eyes, perpetually dribbling nose. So it's to her endless credit that Miss Nava did not cry at all the entire flight to London.
Anyway there were about five other babies who were hogging the mic, so to speak. For my part, I stopped feeling sorry for myself at boarding when I saw a lone lady flying with very tiny twin babies, who (like us) had neither a bassinet nor an extra seat. She sat a few rows ahead - in the middle of the middle row in coach - with a suckling babe in each arm. They would take turns crying all night.
We passed her - let us call her Mary - on a trip to the bathroom. There she sat with her babes finally both sleeping, her eyes open and staring straight ahead, face expressionless, the three of them illuminated like a memorial to maternal discomfort under their neighbour's yellow reading light.
Now there, I thought, is a woman who is reaching very deeply into her happy place. Perhaps she was thinking about how as a child she would hang from the monkey bars for as long as possible, trying to squeeze all the blood out of her fingers. Foolish, foolish. Or perhaps she was revisiting those many times, now merged into a single, shimmering memory, when she had sat in her living room, a book open in her left hand, a turkey sandwich in the right. How breezily she had scratched her elbow, turned a page, pulled a strand of hair from her eyes, perhaps even twiddled a pen between her feckless fingers. Gone, all gone. I wished her well and hoped that one day in her dotage her boys would install her on a richly outfitted Mediterranean yacht. Women are so awesome.
As for young Nava, she kept it together beautifully until midway through the second leg of our journey, just two hours from Vienna. Enough was enough. She threw down the fabric book she had patiently slobbered on for the past twelve hours, furrowed her brow, looked me in the eyes and did not cry.
"Meeeh!," she said. "Meh, meh, meh. Baaooo! Eek!"
And I was like, Holy smokes, my baby is bitching at me. I said, "I hear you, kid."
"Baah. Meh. MEEEEH!" said Nava, repeatedly slapping the very nice man sitting to our right. "Meh meh meh meh meh meh MEH."
Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of our misery, but let's just say that when we deplaned we looked a little like this:
We got to Vienna at 5.30pm on the 31st of December 2013. And that was just the beginning.
Happy New Year!
Nava and I spent the 31st flying from Dallas to Vienna via London, while Alex flew on a separate itinerary via Frankfurt. Our airplane was packed nearly as tightly as our suitcases full of Christmas largesse. I had a little cold but Nava, with her babyish immune system, was sick as a dog: ripe cough, runny red eyes, perpetually dribbling nose. So it's to her endless credit that Miss Nava did not cry at all the entire flight to London.
Anyway there were about five other babies who were hogging the mic, so to speak. For my part, I stopped feeling sorry for myself at boarding when I saw a lone lady flying with very tiny twin babies, who (like us) had neither a bassinet nor an extra seat. She sat a few rows ahead - in the middle of the middle row in coach - with a suckling babe in each arm. They would take turns crying all night.
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| Row 32 Seat F |
We passed her - let us call her Mary - on a trip to the bathroom. There she sat with her babes finally both sleeping, her eyes open and staring straight ahead, face expressionless, the three of them illuminated like a memorial to maternal discomfort under their neighbour's yellow reading light.
Now there, I thought, is a woman who is reaching very deeply into her happy place. Perhaps she was thinking about how as a child she would hang from the monkey bars for as long as possible, trying to squeeze all the blood out of her fingers. Foolish, foolish. Or perhaps she was revisiting those many times, now merged into a single, shimmering memory, when she had sat in her living room, a book open in her left hand, a turkey sandwich in the right. How breezily she had scratched her elbow, turned a page, pulled a strand of hair from her eyes, perhaps even twiddled a pen between her feckless fingers. Gone, all gone. I wished her well and hoped that one day in her dotage her boys would install her on a richly outfitted Mediterranean yacht. Women are so awesome.
As for young Nava, she kept it together beautifully until midway through the second leg of our journey, just two hours from Vienna. Enough was enough. She threw down the fabric book she had patiently slobbered on for the past twelve hours, furrowed her brow, looked me in the eyes and did not cry.
"Meeeh!," she said. "Meh, meh, meh. Baaooo! Eek!"
And I was like, Holy smokes, my baby is bitching at me. I said, "I hear you, kid."
"Baah. Meh. MEEEEH!" said Nava, repeatedly slapping the very nice man sitting to our right. "Meh meh meh meh meh meh MEH."
Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of our misery, but let's just say that when we deplaned we looked a little like this:
We got to Vienna at 5.30pm on the 31st of December 2013. And that was just the beginning.
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