{"id":662,"date":"2009-12-21T08:04:12","date_gmt":"2009-12-21T08:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.logtestserver.com\/daddytales\/blog\/?p=662"},"modified":"2009-12-21T08:04:12","modified_gmt":"2009-12-21T08:04:12","slug":"first-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/2009\/12\/21\/first-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"First Flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the kids in full \u201cangel\u201d mode leading up to Christmas (well, almost<\/a>), I thought I\u2019d take this opportunity to flash back to a tale about an airplane ride. I wrote this but never posted it.<\/p>\n

Prior to this ride, both kids had already ridden on planes several times on trips back and forth to visit relatives in Texas. On this trip, however, something was significantly different: their mother was not with them.<\/p>\n

We settled into our row of seats with the youngest next to the window and the oldest next to me. After some chitchat about how much they loved flying, and weren\u2019t scared at all, the stewardess gave the safety speech about seat belts and air masks and emergency landings and such.<\/p>\n

The boys stayed quiet through the whole presentation, then checked their seatbelts and looked up at the ceilings.<\/p>\n

\u201cMasks?\u201d one asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYep,\u201d I said. \u201cThe air up there is thin, so if the plane springs a leak, we need the masks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh,\u201d the oldest settled back in his seat.<\/p>\n

I watched their little hands clench the handrests as the plane took off. The youngest stared intently at his toes during liftoff.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything okay?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

They both nodded.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst time without mommy,\u201d the oldest said.<\/p>\n

After we\u2019d levelled off, I noticed him breathing funny: big gasps followed by little puffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust testing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen are the masks going to drop?\u201d his younger brother asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not. They only -\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it going to break?\u201d my oldest interrupted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u00a0hope not.\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d my youngest\u00a0nodded seriously. \u201ccause then our bags would break.\u201d<\/p>\n

I smiled. \u201cTrue\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we\u2019d have to wear masks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYep,\u201d I agreed again.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike The Flash.\u201d<\/p>\n

His older brother looked at him like he was crazy.<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably not,\u201d I said. \u201cI don\u2019t think ours are red.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the kids in full \u201cangel\u201d mode leading up to Christmas (well, almost), I thought I\u2019d take this opportunity to flash back to a tale about an airplane ride. I wrote this but never posted it. Prior to this ride, both kids had already ridden on planes several times on trips back and forth to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[118,122,119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daddytales-c","category-daddytales-n","category-daddytales-funny"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DpYi-aG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}