Aileen Jeffries

I have a friend who likes to go on 12-mile hikes on Mt. Hood in the middle of winter. He summits such colorfully-named locales as Misery Ridge, Starvation Creek and Resort-to-Cannibalism Cliff. He recounts with glee sinking thigh-high into the snow with each arduous step.

To me, this sounds like insanity. Not how I’d like to spend my weekends. But we all must have our masochistic fun, and mine comes in the form of Plane Travel With Small Child.

Over the weekend, Kea and I flew down to Nashville to surprise a friend from my Clemson days at her baby shower. The trip was a big success – my friend was duly floored by my appearance and Kea was her usual charming self for most of the weekend.

The flight home wasn’t ideal, however. Apparently, freezing temperatures came as a surprise to Frontier Airlines. In January. In Denver. So, our last flight from Denver to Portland was delayed by 1.5 hours. All seats were occupied, the overhead bins and underseat storage overflowing with the belongings of passengers trying to avoid the $15 fee for checked luggage. Being a budget airline, even nuts and berries were exorbitantly expensive, adding hunger to the list of scourges afflicting my fellow travelers. Kea, who seemed to intuitively understand that commercial aircraft are powered by the screams and tears of babies, did her best to get us home as quickly as possible. She cried, she squirmed, she refused to be pacified. No number of Kix could quiet her. At times, she would close her eyes, raising my hopes that she might pass out (at midnight, this did not seem like an unreasonable wish) only to rise again with renewed vigor and vitriol. College students glared at me, parents cast me sympathetic glances. Three hours crept by at the pace of an elderly snail.

But in the end, of course we made it home. In the morning, Kea arose with her usual sunny smile as if to say, what plane ride, Mom?