As you may know from an earlier post, we missed our flight home from Hawaii and had to hastily rebook for the next day. We were forced to fly 2 of our 3 legs home first class - and no that was not a gift; I will probably be repaying that debt until the kids start college.
So anyway, on leg two of our trip, after doing an all-nighter from Hawaii to L.A., it's 7am and I am shuffling two very exhausted little kids onto the plane to Salt Lake City. (and we've still got another flight to St George after that)
Catty sees that she is going to be in a separate row behind me and Devin (I gotta sit next to the younger one, and there's only 2 seats per row - what else can I do??) AND she's sitting next to a strange man to boot.
As I'm buckling her into her seat, big crocodile tears are falling from her eyes that she has to sit away from me AGAIN. She wasn't tantruming at ALL, but she couldn't stop the tears from falling - she was so overtired and exhausted, plus sitting with a stranger and wanting to be with her mommy.
I was so mortified for this guy who was sitting in first class, but had a crying 4 year old for a seat partner - it doesn't get much worse than that, does it? GAHHH!!!
I tried to give Catty the "Please be a big brave girl for mommy" speech, and I apologized profusely to the guy next to her, and he was so very, very cool about it. Within just a minute or two, he had Catty giggling and wiping her tears away. And for the rest of the flight, he kept starting to do some work, but then Catty would ask him to play with her, and he would. He kept her smiling for the whole darned flight, and I know all you moms can imagine just how awesome that feeling was for me while I was busy amusing a tired 3 year old in the seat next to me.
I will forever be grateful.
At one point I turned around and said, "Dude, are you a salesman? Because you have so much charm and charisma!" and he smiled modestly, and said, "No, I am a correspondent for ESPN, and I have 3 kids of my own"
I said apologetically, "Oh, sorry, I don't watch ESPN, being a single mom... but what's your name, so I can google you when I get home?"
He said, "Chris Connelly", and I wrote it on the back of my hand so I could look it up when I got home.
SO, I'm home now, and I googled him, and dude, he's an Emmy-nominated reporter who has had his own show ("Unscripted with Chris Connelly"), used to be on MTV, and he has all these credits to his name, Wikipedia entry, IMDB entry, blah blah blah, this is him -
http://www.espnmediazone.com/bios/Ta...elly_Chris.htm
And he never flinched once at having to babysit a 4 year old girl who had tears rolling down her fat cheeks when she had to sit next to him!!
I readily admit that I don't know who he was, but I am so grateful that Catty got to sit with with someone who was cool enough to play magnetic fishies with her
and he even practiced sign language with her and let her spell words forwards and backwards for him, and he said she was the most fun partner he's ever had the pleasure to sit next to.
What could have been such a terrible fiasco turned out to be a lovely time, and I will always be grateful to him.
Thanks, captain!! I owe you one!!!
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