So.

We survived.

Our first family vacation. Four flights, two layovers and countless numbers of goldfish crackers and cheerios later, we’re all in one piece. I’m pretty sure, anyway.

My son behaved for the most part on the flight, save for ten minutes on the way there and about fifteen on the way home where he morphed into changeling baby and shrieked as though unforseen hands were trying to rip out his organs. Other than that little blip, things were fine. But yes, I did notice the burning stares of death from the surrounding passengers when we walked on the plane for the first time. You could just see their thoughts: “Please don’t let them sit here. Oh God, please. I just know that kid will throw a tantrum and spill his sippy cup all over my People magazine. Keep moving…keep walking…oh, crap.”

Thankfully though, on each flight, there was a child so bratty and obnoxious that our kid could’ve run up and down the aisle naked and pissed on everyone and he still wouldn’t have gotten the title of Child Most Likely To Be Thrown Off The Plane Without A Flotation Device.

It’s funny, isn’t it? I don’t know if this is anyone else’s experience, but when I’m in a public place with my kid, especially one where I really, really want him to behave, my husband and I smile gleefully at each other when someone else’s precious baybee starts throwing shit around and having a Mach Five Meltdown. Because, of course, at least my kid won’t be the only brat at the restaurant, in the grocery store, whatever. And my kid is also at the stage where other children are the most interesting, fascinating thing. Especially when they’re flipping out.

So, any of you who have bratty kids and live in the Chicago area, please feel free to email me your upcoming weekend itineraries! I’d love to be assured of a “brat cushion” for the next time we go out in public.

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Despite of the disaster of the last vacation, my husband and I just booked a trip for all of us to go away again the first week in August. (Dramatic pause)

Wait for it….Wait for it….

ON A PLANE.

I think the beers I drank while watching the Cubs game last Saturday are still floating around in my cerebral cortex somewhere. Because? A plane? Will probably equivocate to Dante’s version of hell, except instead of wasps there’ll be toddler temper tantrums, thrown Cheerios and formula sprayed all over the poor saps in front of us.

Mind you, we knew all of this fully when we hit that Book Flight button. But, we figured we deserved a vacation, it wouldn’t be that bad, maybe he would behave…blah, blah, blah. I believe I’ve just set the premise for every comedic movie involving what was sure to be a “fun-filled family vacation” that goes horribly awry.

It’ll be like National Lampoon’s Satanic Toddler Vacation.

Oh, did I also mention we have a two-hour layover in Atlanta? I’m sure my eleven month old will TOTALLY understand that connecting flights were much cheaper than direct flights and thus, we have to endure two boardings, two landings and two sets of people who will hate us from the moment they lay eyes on us.

And I’m sure he’ll be just FINE with the fact that the flight crew generally doesn’t like it when crawling babies block the aisles, stopping only to turn red-faced and grunt out a good, smelly poop, so he’ll have to stay on my lap.

He’ll definitely understand when I remind him that it’s not polite to rip out the hair of the person next to you, no matter how much her hair resembles something a bird would live in.

I mean, right?

(Oh, and to anyone who is traveling from Chicago to Savannah in early August, may God have mercy on your soul.)

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I have good news and bad news.

First, the good: The gods have blessed us and my husband and I discovered something that makes our small son stop wriggling around for more than five seconds. This thing actually occupies him for several minutes at a time and is a magical cure-all for whining, crying, temper-tantrums and general pissed-off-ness.

The bad? It has possibly significantly altered the neurons in my brain.

I’m talking, of course, about the video Baby Songs. If you haven’t heard of it, please get yourself up to speed. You’ll be happy you did.

I first heard Baby Songs when my sister was little. It was the only thing that would shut her up (seeing a pattern here?) when I babysat, so in my wise thirteen years of wisdom, I let her watch it whenever she wanted. The catchy tunes soon seared into my very cerebral cortex and I memorized all the lyrics.

Fast forward to many years later. For Christmas, my sister bought my son Baby Songs. I laughed and stuffed it behind my boxed sets of The Office. Then, a few weeks ago, when my son was being particularly ornery, I pulled it out in a last-ditch effort before I threw myself out the window.

And. Holy. Crap.

He became hypnotized by the songs, “Daddy Be A Horsey,” “Walking,” and many, many others.

I minored in history in college, OK? I should’ve seen this coming–history ALWAYS repeats itself. Duh.

Except now I find myself singing on my way to and from work lyrics such as: “Walking, walking, walking, walking/Seems so easy now/But I remember when I was small/And I did not know how.” It’s like a part of my brain, lying dormant, was suddenly reactivated and now cannot ever be shut off. And I’m sort of ashamed, sort of weirdly proud that I actually went on the website for the guy who wrote and sung all the songs on the tape. His website did not, however, offer any sort of antidote or remedy to fix my now slightly damaged brain.

Please tell me I’m not the only one to suffer the horrors of not only KNOWING all the lyrics to horrid kid songs, but regularly find yourself WHISTLING them in public places.

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