Our plane from home from Korea

Lissi had been doing great. We had a few crying episodes, but mostly happy girl. She's fine on the plane when we were all boarding. Then the fasten the seatbelt light went on and she needed to be in one place. That was it. She had had it. These strangers were NOT going to have her sit still in one place on a strange lap in a confined place full of people. She started to scream. And scream. And scream. Now, mind you after bringing home baby from h*** this was not a surprise to me at all. I was not frantic or terribly upset. That does NOT describe the people around us. They started with the "poor baby" looks. Then "poor parents". Then "poor American parents who don't know how to care for a Korean baby". Then finally, "get me far away from this baby". To "shut the baby up!!!" At least one person requested a new seat. Then soon after take off, she stopped (so we had about 25 minutes screaming total). She sat, played, and slept on our chests.

We had requested a basinet. So they gave us a bulkhead. When we brought Cal home we also requested a basinet and did not get one. We got a bulkhead last time, but moved to an empty row at the suggestion of the flight attendent who said that we would be more comfortable there. Oh, boy, do I wish we could have done that this time. The bulkhead SUCKS. We got a basinet but it was broken so they wouldn't let us use it. So instead we had to have her on our laps (there was an empty seat between us but she wanted nothing to do with sitting on that). We couldn't stretch our legs at all. The movie screen was 18 inches from our faces but up just slightly so I had to strain my eyes to watch it (but how do you not watch when it is so frickin' close). I had a major headache by the end of the 1st bad movie. I had to wear my eye mask the rest of the flight so that I didn't go insane (luckily Lissi was mostly sleeping on one lap or the other so we didn't have to worry too much about her--just our appendages that were falling asleep).

Then there was the family behind us. They were quite interesting. It was 2 grandparents with a 8ish year old boy between them. They only spoke Korean and it was quite obvious that they had never been on a plane before. It started with the Korean flight attendent telling them at least 4 times to put their items under the seat and buckle their seat belts. The last time we were practically speeding down the runway. She was frantic in telling them b/c they just didn;t get it. After we got in the air we were okay for a while. Then the boy started to kick, hit, pull on, etc. the chair in front of him. That was where I was sitting. Hurrah. I moved over (thank the Lord we had the row to ourselves). But as I sit there I start to feel something on my arm. It was the socked toes of the grandmother in back of me. Gross. I kept "bumping" it and eventually it went away. Only to be replaced by a bare foot! Yuck-o!! Then there was peace for a few hours. Then the boy woke up and started talking REALLY loud. It's hard to be loud on an airplane. There is so much ambient noise. But he managed. I have no idea what he was saying, but I would have understood every word if he spoke English. I was so afraid he would wake up Lissi and start the screaming again. Okay... so the end of the trip. The fasten seatbelt sign is on and we are literally 5 minutes from the ground. Even the flight attendents have their seatbelts on. The boy starts yelling something at his grandparents. His grandmother takes him INTO THE AISLE and is covering his ears and talking to him. I think he was having a lot of ear trouble from the air pressure difference. Wink pulled out gum and was trying to tell him (using gestures) that it was gum and he should chew and not swallow it. They had no idea what he was saying, and for some reason no one around us translated. Finally a Korean flight attendant told them to sit down right away and I think she said something about the gum. Then when the flight was over the family jumped out of their seat and literally tried to push others out of the way so they could get down the aisle 1st. They weren't trying to be rude per say, and it wasn't that they hated the flight, they just figured it was okay to push their way to the front.