How Not to Calm a Child on a Plane by Johanna Stein Read Free Book Online Page B

hold my breath.
    She’s looking in my direction—but I don’t think she’s actually seeing me. Maybe she’s not quite awake yet, or perhaps her eyes have not adjusted to the dark, or maybe it’s that she’s six months old and for all she knows it’s totally normal for floors to suddenly grow 125-pound lumps in them. * †
    I’m not sure what to do if she starts to cry. The pamphlet didn’t say anything about how to handle being caught in the act; if I reveal myself to her, will she be confused or alarmed? Or will she simply come to believe that her parents are always with her, hiding under her bed? ‡
    I stay where I am, frozen in space and time, my full-to-bursting bladder pressing against my corneas. All I can do is lay here with my thoughts, most of which involve rushing water.
    The child begins to babble to herself. Normally, I love the sound of her nonsense talking—when she does it, I like to imagine that she’s addressing Congress—but now I’m terrified that her thoughts on the Health Care Bill will transform into wails.
    Thankfully, this doesn’t happen. Instead, she lies down, her babbling softening until it is just soft, whispery breaths. After I am certain that she is asleep, I get up off the floor and sneak out. And just as I am about to shut her bedroom door, I find myself face-to-face with the husband, who is now en route to the toilet.
    â€œIS SHE OUT?” he croaks loudly.
    If I could think of a way to throttle the life out of him in total silence, I would. Unfortunately, I am not a martial arts expert, * so instead I push past him to the bathroom, where I release my bodily fluids, as slowly and quietly as I can.

    The next morning when I walk into the child’s room, she coos and beams at me with those big, bright eyes, the ones that just ten hours ago appeared to be plotting my demise. I am amazed that she doesn’t seem to be holding a grudge about last night—though that may simply bebecause she hasn’t yet developed the language skills to tell me to go to hell.
    Incredibly, the dog-eared book with questionable origins is right; by the third night, she goes down without crying and sleeps all the way through until morning. Just days later her father and I are well-rested and getting along much better, and when we do bicker, we cover a much wider and more interesting array of topics. Still, I’d like to believe that this experience won’t leave any permanent traces on her memory. I sincerely hope so, because now I’ve got no other means to counteract them; her soft spot has long since disappeared.

    * Although I fancy myself a genius of the MacArthur magnitude, I am not a trained medical professional; please take everything you read here with a Donald Trump–head-size grain of salt, and talk to your own doctor, do your own research. I am not—I repeat, NOT—to be trusted. Thank you. Now carry on.
    â€  Anything, that is, except for the sound of my parents enjoying sexual relations.
    * Dream feeding: the act of bottle or breast-feeding an infant while it’s still asleep, much like that time in college you awoke to realize that you’d eaten four Nutrisystem bars and a mostly melted half gallon of Chunky Monkey ice cream in your sleep.
    * I may not have yelled the part about the diapers, but I thought it very loudly.
    * This is not a lie; I actually was a professional mime.
    * All right, 129-pound lumps.
    â€  Fine. 137.
    â€¡ Maybe not such a bad thing in about ten years.
    * Yet.

six
    HOW NOT TO CALM A CHILD ON A PLANE
    I am at the airport with my daughter and the guy she calls “Dada.” We are about to board a Florida-bound plane to visit my mother-in-law.
    But the toddler is losing her shit.
    After two years of being the perfect travel companion, she has suddenly developed a fear of flying. I wonder if maybe she’s worked out the physics of what we are about to do. Perhaps