Back in Los Angeles. Bye, bye Singapore.

After 15 hours of flight time & a total of 24 hours of travel time, we are back in our nook of the world in Los Angeles, California.

We left Pan-Pacific Hotel at 6:30am, ate some mediocre dim sum at the Singapore Airport, & boarded a 9:40am flight with Singapore Airlines. After a 6-hour flight, we landed around 6pm in Tokyo's Narita Airport for an hour layover, went through security for connecting flights, & hopped back onto the same place (different staff) for a 9-hour flight to Los Angeles.

The way back west was much faster than our first trip going toward Asia. With tailwind, we cut an hour from our Tokyo-to-LA flight. We were also better at managing Atticus, who was, again, so well behaved that he cried 2-3 times for no longer than 3 min. His problem was easy to figure out: he was hungry. On our descent into Los Angeles, he sat on my lap with his own infant seat belt & smiled & laughed with the flight attendant who sat opposite us. He was an angel on board.

Next to us sat a young Indian couple with a boy of about 1.5 years of age. He was a incorrigible little brat, but from watching him interact with his parents, it was clear to us that his parents were to blame for his behavior. On taking off from Singapore Airport, the boy cried loudly & uncontrollably upon being put into the infant seat belt, & instead of chastising his behavior, they argued with the flight attendants on the necessity of using the belt. As we took off, the mother pulled him out & held him, & the flight attendants looked over at her disapprovingly. The parents also resisted putting their belongings in the overhead compartment. Since we were sitting in the bulkhead seats, we had no storage space under our feet, so everything went up top. The poor, beleaguered flight attendants had to explain, insist, & warn the parents to comply with the policy.

Throughout the flight from Singapore to Tokyo, the little boy was either misbehaving or crying. He would sweep his hand over his father's food tray & send cups & utensils spilling onto the ground. He would pick up his toys & throw them at his mother or on the floor. Or he would just cry loudly when he didn't get his way. Instead of admonishing him, the doting parents tried distraction, placing another object in front of his face or picking him up. They gave him an ice cream bar, which he held & ate, though he spilled chunks of ice cream all over his mother's lap & seat.

Robby wanted to speak with the parents about his behavior, but I warned him of a recently established rule that we have been discussing lately:
Never criticize a parent about his/her parenting.
Nothing productive can come of it. Parents already feel insecurity about their skills as parents, so criticizing them will make them angry & defensive. I reassured Robby that the parents probably already felt embarrassed by the irritating scene that their son was making. It was obvious to everyone that their little boy controlled them. The descent into Tokyo was another melodramatic scene with the little boy & parents' refusal to use the infant seat belt. I had to sing to Atticus to keep him from turning his head toward the little boy & crying from empathy (Robby has told me something about mirror neurons...).

At Narita Airport in Tokyo, I kept my fingers crossed & wished that another family would be placed in our row, but to our misfortune, the same family returned. This time, before taking off, Robby suggested to the mother that she administer Baby Benadryl to her son to calm him. What a suggestion...your child is inconsolable, so give him some drugs! She said that his behavior wasn't so bad & that worse behavior might warrant some baby drug use. Luckily, for the entire flight, the boy was reasonably quiet. I don't think his parents changed their behavior, but I think that he was tired.

In conclusion, parents do not welcome criticism of any sort about their parenting skills. They/we are very sensitive about them & will react with anger, denial, or resentment. They might be thinking, "Try raising this kid" or "You don't know a thing about kids" or "You've got one kid, try raising two!" & it's true, we're new parents with a pleasant-tempered 4-month-old baby. WE LUCKED OUT with such a well-behaved baby. So we might as well count our blessings & keep our mouths shut when other parents struggle.

Now with that said, I have to go back my older postings & insert pictures.