More Reynolds Than Ingersoll

So the babies first flight was much closer to my first airplane experience than JR's. Since Jason and I raised JR, I think we just assumed all Ingersoll children would be excellent fliers. Both of us secretly thought Reed would be the fussier of the two, so Jason told me before hand that he would take Kyle and I could have Reed. But before we boarded, Kyle fell asleep while I was holding him, so I actually wound up with Kyle and Jason had Reed. I've said before that Kyle acts a lot like me, well, yesterday he proved it...for the whole plane. The plane was full, and I was in a middle seat. They won't let Jason and me sit together since they only have 4 oxygen masks per row, so that leaves 2 complete strangers sitting on either side of me. Things were fine for the first two seconds, but seems Kyle hates to fly as much as I do. He screamed (and when I say "scream" I mean the annoying, crying, squeal that only children confined on airplanes can make) from the time we sat down until the plane took off into the air (the long wait on the runway was super fun). Kyle was in full on fit mode. If I held him so he was facing me, he'd launch himself backward into a gymnast's back bend pose. If I held him with his back to me, he'd slam his head into my collar bone as hard as he could...and he could really get the force going behind that little maneuver since he could brace his feet on the seat-back in front of us. When the plane finally took off I looked over at Jason and saw that Reed was asleep on his chest; Jason also had his eyes closed and was in "Ingersoll plane sleeping position". I really thought Reed had inherited the Ingersoll plane traveling genes, but he only slept about 15 minutes.
I'm not sure who the most miserable person on the flight was, but I have a list of nominees:
A. Me-screaming baby that I can't control
B. Man Sitting Next To Me- Something about him must have reminded Kyle of Jason because he kept trying to crawl in his lap. The poor guy finally struck up a conversation with me, I guess he figured if Kyle was going to keep him awake the whole flight, the least I could do was entertain him.
C. Unmarried Woman That Rolled Her Eyes When She Saw She Had To Sit Next To Me- She had the window seat and she scrunched herself into that window as far as she could get. I believe given a choice, she would have picked to ride outside on the wing rather than sit next to me.
D. The University of New Mexico Lobo's Basketball Team- 7 ft. tall basketball players stuffed into the seats in coach -'nuff said.
About 30 minutes into the flight I got Kyle calmed down enough to start shoving Cheerios down his throat, which seemed to pacify him for awhile. I was sure that eventually he would take a nap, but seems that Kyle is exactly like me and feels the need to stay awake just in case the pilot needs help flying or we need to fight terrorists. Had I been traveling without the babies, I think I might have relaxed a bit on my terrorist watch. There was only one guy I thought was a little shady (yes, I check out everybody on the plane) but I figured with the basketball team on board they could certainly fight off terrorists with all their athletic prowless.
About 1 1/2 hours into the flight I took Kyle to Granny Sherry to watch while I went to the bathroom. While I was up I checked on my mom and JR who were enthralled in one of their many games of War. (Kelly, give JR 16 years and he's totally ready to join you at the War table in Vegas.) My mom and JR looked like they were having the time of their lives and the lady sitting next to them was peacefully asleep.
Back in my seat, Kyle continued to struggle and scream. Reed would have an outburst every now and again, but was a dream compared to Kyle. As the pilot came on to tell us we had begun our initial decent, Kyle fell asleep. I know how it is, that's one of my favorite parts of the flight too...knowing that it's almost over.
I learned a few lessons from yesterday's flight:
1. JR is an excellent traveler. (Have I mentioned that enough?)
2. I can't travel with the babies by myself.
3. When thinking the drive to Durango is long, think back to yesterday's plane trip
4. I owe everybody aboard yesterday's Continental flight 1020 from Houston to Albuquerque a huge apology.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.