Dear mother with older children who has lost all grace towards a mom with toddlers.

Dear mother with older children who has lost all grace towards a mom with toddlers,You've seen your children as little infants in your arm. Endured the countless feedings in the middle of the night that leave you ragged the next day. Kissed every inch of their sweet baby skin. Cuddles them while they were sick. Watched them grow into the beautiful adults they are now. How quickly you forget what it feels like to have the crying baby on the airplane.

-The mom with the exhausted crying baby behind you

We just finished up our family vacation. It was amazing. Waking up in a new house, going outside in the WARMTH, sipping coffee in the back yard while the kids play golf. I couldn't have asked for a more relaxing or fun family vacation.
We finished our trip with a short plane ride. My kids have been on planes before so I didn't have any stress the morning of. I figured they'd both sleep through the flight then we'd be home in our own beds. We even cut Levi's nap short so he'd still be tired on the plane.
However kids don't always do what you expect. Instead of drifting into sleep after a quiet take off, Levi decided to cry. He was angry at everyone and everything. He's our independent child and can't stand being held when he wants to explore. I tried rocking him, kissing him, cuddling him, letting him play with anything I could find, and yet the crying only managed to get louder. My stress levels were escalating because I knew he was just exhausted and needed to sleep.

Then I started to realize the "gracious" looks from the mom in front of me. She had to adult daughters next to her and thought it would help me to turn around every few minutes, glare at us, and turn around shaking her head.

It took me seven minutes to get him to sleep. Seven. Not thirty minutes. Not an hour. Seven whole minutes.
It baffles me to see moms act this way. I know they've been their before. Maybe it was in a grocery store or some other public place, but it's happened to all of us. Why not be gracious or at the very least understand and look forward. Looking back at the mom with the crying child with dirty looks merely puts me in a worse mood and stresses me out causing my child to cry more.

With my "perfect" attitude, I told Joel I wanted to tell her how much she was helping in my very non pregnant, pissed off attitude. Instead I bit my tongue and focused on my little Levi.

Now I'm sitting here while my whole family sleeps and she continues to glare at the girl in the row next to her for playing cards.