Flying with Clara

    While boarding a plane in Phoenix, Clara reached up a small, adorably dimpled paw and gently cupped the denim-covered butt cheek of an elderly lady right in front of us.
     It was Tuesday, and we were on our way to Tampa to spend Thanksgiving with Simon's family.
    "Clara, we do not touch strange people's bottoms," I hissed as the row we were passing twittered with laughter.
     The woman hardly paused. "Don't worry.  I got three grandkids," she tossed over her shoulder.
    Our seats on the plane were behind a tall man with a glorious mane of white-gray hair.  He looked like a silver-back gorilla.  Clara spent much of the trip from Phoenix to Tampa standing on her seat, trying to stroke the man's deliciously decadent hair.  He was having a double vodka tonic and so was unaware of the flurry of emotion his tresses evoked in the tiny traveler behind him.  At least, I thought he was unaware. Suddenly, he shot us a nasty glance over his shoulder.  Whether it was because he finally sensed the little fingers flittering above his mane or because Clara had started to push against the back of his seat with her feet, I couldn't tell.
     "Okay, you need to sit still," I told her.  "That man doesn't want his hair touched or his seat pushed."
     "Oh, hi man," Clara said, waving breezily in his direction.
     I tried to think of something to occupy her.  We still had three hours of flight, and she'd already watched both Elmo's Potty Time and Curious George on her portable DVD player, had a few bags of Annie's gummy bunny snacks, and scribbled in all the in-flight magazines with a pen.
    Before the first leg of our trip, from Boise to Phoenix, Clara had experienced nerves and claustrophobia ("Dit out!  Dit off!  I wan' out, Mommy!" she had yelled while we boarded the plane).  She'd squeezed Pooh Bear, panda bear and one of her favorite babies tightly as we sped down the runway, but gasped in delight when the front wheels lifted off the runway. After lift-off, there had followed a hushed conversation filled with reassurances between Clara and her stuffed animals ("Don't be stared."), and then she'd wedged them between the edge of the seat and the window so they could watch the scenery disappearing below.
     Now, however, half a day later, flying and planes in general had long lost their glamor.
     After old Platinum Shag gave us his disparaging look, I brought out a small container of chocolate milk. Clara leaned back against Simon's chest so he could administer the sips.  Ah, chocolate milk.  The warmth of Daddy's chest.  The proximity of her stuffed animals and both parents.  She wiggled her naked toes in delight (she'd long since shed both socks and shoes).  She tried to hold the chocolate milk in a puddle at the bottom of her mouth to better savor the taste.  It spilled over her bottom lip and dribbled down the front of her shirt.
     I got out the Wet Wipes, but she tore one from my hand.
     "No! My turn! I cleaning.  I washing.  Wash, wash, wash," she said, scrubbing the backs of the seats in front of us.  The woman sitting next to the man with the hair had her elbow on the armrest.  Clara reached through the gap in the seats and began to industriously scrub it.  Startled, the woman turned around part-way. We earned yet another sidelong glare from Silver Fox.
     "I am so, so sorry," I murmured, wrenching the Wet wipe from Clara's hands.
     "No, Mommy!  This is mine! I cleaning 'eats!"
     "Those seats are clean enough."
     Clara stood up again in her seat and began playing peek-a-boo with a young guy that sat behind us.  He and his girlfriend humored her for the rest of the trip.  I wondered if it was bad manners to let your child, no matter how charming, continue to engage people who clearly had better things to do.  Magazines to read.  Naps to take.  Especially since, being on a plane, these other people had no means of escape.  Luckily the young man and his girlfriend didn't seem to mind.
      I took advantage of the opportunity to slump with exhaustion for a few minutes and stare blankly at the gray seat-back in front of me.
     "Yay! I'm yanding!" Clara shouted as the plane finally touched down in Tampa.