Ah, the great roll of the dice that is getting on a plane with a child. The resulting adventure is always worth it. As long as you don’t introduce sugar halfway through, you’ll probably find yourself surprised by how many relaxing moments you have, staring at the Emergency Exit diagram for the 30th time. I like to order a cup of coffee as rogue challenge to fate. I always manage to finish it while still hot, and it is always delicious.

Whether it feels like you finished your flight with a walk of shame or a nod toward infamy, someone is bound to say “oh she was so good” as you walk past. Translation: You’re lucky I didn’t hear that baby once from my seat.

Those who were so blessed, slept. Those who didn’t, blog anyway.

Packing entertainment for a near two-year-old means tapping into your inner pack rat. Find containers, most from the recycling bin, and hide things in them. Think color, tactile, cheap, and random. Random is the key because truly you have no idea what stage of object-love your child might be at that week. Hide everything until the plane ride (actually, for nine months and younger I think it’s better to introduce things here and there beforehand, because they like familiar objects in unfamiliar settings at that point). We explained several times, “We’re not unzipping that backpack because it’s chock full of treats for the airplane.” Evidently anticipation is inborn in humans from the word “me.”

The number one winner in this group for the whole trip is that little Clinique jar full of pom poms on the far right. This is a jar that I purchased in the late ’90s and wisely left in my cosmetic bag for the next eight years, expensive moisturizer steadily declining into lord-knows-what-paste. It looks like glass but it’s actually thick plastic (clever, Clinique!). Not only was this the plane favorite, it was the restaurant favorite, the it’s 8am and sunny but mom and dad are still resting favorite, and the we’re-still-shopping stroller distraction favorite. Pom poms were strewn across the city for pigeons to mistake for chewy colored bread. “All of these will end up thrown across the plane,” Joe wisely observed when I brought them home from Target. “They were $2” I gleefully replied.

But the very best advice is always going to be: ask at the desk as soon as you arrive at your gate to see if there are any open seats you can be moved near to. Lux was practically kicking Joe and I out of our seats on the way over so she could have her own space for awhile. It wasn’t lost on her that no one else on the plane was sitting on their companion’s lap. On the way back, by a miracle, she got her own seat and it was wonderful.