When you have kids, your perception of time changes dramatically. Various parts of your life appear to go by at double speed while other parts seem to crawl by frame by frame.

Traveling is one “hurry up and wait” time slice after another. When you don’t have kids, the “and wait” portion is usually spent paging through some magazine or another and basically being bored. YOU MUST SAVOR THIS TIME! When you have kids, the “and wait” portion is spent desperately trying to entertain your children with whatever assortment of toys you’ve brought with while not trying to blow your wad since you have 3 hrs to kill while on the plane.

In the end, it’s a crapshoot, though. Kids will be kids and they’ll do what they’re going to do on the plane. But then, this is what makes them endearing the rest of the time, so you take the good with the bad. That said, you’re probably better off not traveling unless you have to.