Case in point

I wish this blog were wildly, shockingly, offensively popular. That way older women would see me walking down the street with my bare-legged baby and curl that pointy finger back in. That's right! This is my general policy on racism / prejudice / rudeness, by the way: I know there will always be a certain percentage of the population who think hideous thoughts and there's nothing I can do about it--I just want them to be too AFRAID to say anything to ME. But I'll get to my thoughts on being Palestinian and race a little later. We don't know each other like that yet.

So back to my case in point. This last month Munchkin and I braved our first airplane. And second and third and one more coming up, because my husband and I had the very intelligent idea of squeezing all our family visits for the year into one sweet summer month. (Thank you Harvard and Georgetown for our fine decision-making skills.) Since I was traveling without the husband for this portion of the trip, I settled into my aisle seat and anxiously watched the people shoving their way down the aisle, praying that whoever we were going to be stuck with wouldn't hate babies. Or at least my baby (I have to tell you, although you're probably not going to believe me, my Munch Munch is one amazingly cute kid). So, anyway, this older lady with understated perfume and a gentle voice settled in next to us and within a few minutes announced her intention to sleep for most of the plane ride. Normally, my reaction would have been "JACKPOT, BABY!" But, well, things aren't what they used to be honey.

In the new world paradigm I live in, here's what I already had going against me:
1) She's a woman.
2) She's a generation or two older than me.
3) She liked my baby

Translation: this woman was gonna be watching me.

So, there we are on the runway, getting settled--she with a smooth leather purse nestled quietly in her lap, and me with an overtired baby trying to stand and play giddy-up on my lap. After I heroically nursed my baby to sleep and kept him asleep among engines starting and stopping, the pilot over the PA service announcing our 45 minute delay, and other poor little babies screaming, something truly terrible happened: Munch Munch's left sock fell off. Now, our lady passenger friend was already looking nervous because I had taken baby's sweat pants off earlier as we sat on the runway overheating and sweating our brains out, gazing thirstily at the flight attendants and wishing for a flimsy cup of water or even a wet cloth to suck. Now, this lady was thinking, not only does that baby have no pants on, he only has one sock. He has one whole, exposed, leg. So what must she, the protector of all underdressed babies do? She must find that sock! She must cajole, poke, suggest, advise that silly, novice momma to turn the airconditioning down! At all costs, that little foot must stay warm!

As you may imagine, during this process, my sweetly sleeping baby woke up. But she was not deterred. There was rummaging! There was leaning! There was bending and reaching! There were deep stares below and under the seats! Finally, after she pointed out that my baby's sock was missing for the third time, I told her that I wasn't worried about it and what I needed right now was to let my exhausted little child sleep.

This got me off the hook for the rest of his nap. Hallelujah. And I give her credit for that--some women would still not have been deterred. Maybe she was a better person than the others. Maybe she was still evaluating her own chances for a nap.

When my delightful, well rested little boy woke up I did manage to find the mischievous sock (in my crotch) and return it to its proper sweaty foot. Then, as I smugly congratulated myself on two full naps on a full day of travel she starts up a new conversation piece: "So, why are you still breastfeeding? Have you ever pumped?"