How many Flight Attendants does it take to satisfy a 4 year old boy ????

A 2hour 40 minute flight from Guangzhou to Beijing, how bad can it be, right? Here are the photos below and the story which goes with each photo.

1) Flight Attendants see how cute Jiang Lei is and begin discussing how they can spoil him.

2) Jiang Lei decides that he doesn't want to see next to his Daddy anymore so he tells the Flight Attendant and of course she moves him, without asking his parents or anything like that.

3) He tells her that he is hungry which is true, since we left the hotel before 6am and got to the gate when it was already boarding time. So she brings him a bag of peanuts, only for him. Mommy tells the Flight Attendant that it is not nice to give a bag of peanuts only to him when he has sisters on the flight, so she also gives a bag to Ji Ji (Nora was asleep). Then Jiang Lei begins his fake crying because he should get more, so the Flight Attendant gives him another bag and tells him he has 2 and his sister only has one, isn't that great.

4) Here he is whining because he didn't really want peanuts, he wanted something better. So the Flight Attendant goes into the back and brings out a bad of M&Ms - it's 8am in the morning. And she doesn't bother to ask his parents, just gives it to him. He is happy for a while.

5) Here he is eating him M&Ms and showing me that he got 2 drinks when everyone else only got 1 drink. He is quite proud of himself.

6) Here is the male Flight Attendant who tells him that even though the "Fasten Seat Belt" sign is on, Jiang Lei doesn't really need to wear his seat belt and he takes it off of him. Mommy got very mad at the Flight Attendant and he had to come back and convince Jiang Lei to put the seat belt back on. Jiang Lei tried to bite him as he tried to put his seat belt back on, I guess he is not discriminating in his attention. You are either with him or against him.

7) Here is the Flight Attendant checking to see if there is anything else she could possible do to make his flight more enjoyable. He is basking in the attention. (The rest of us, of course, are ignored).

8) More attention, don't even remember what this was for as it was just getting too overwhelming for Mom and Dad.

9) As we were landing, Mommy tried to get Jiang Lei to put his shoes back on and to fasten his seat belt but after the Flight Attendants had told him that it really wasn't important to do as his Mom and Dad said, he realized they were right and he just fought me. Then the Flight Attendant came by when she heard him screaming to see what she could do to help him. Mommy then screamed loudly at the Flight Attendant and told her that this was all her fault and she needed to fix it. So here she is trying to get him back into his seat with his seat belt on while the plane is beginning its descent into Beijing. And he took a few swings at her in the process.




We had a 2 hour layover in Beijing, but it took us so long to get cleared throught the outgoing immigration and to wait for our bags to clear, that we got to the gate about 20 minutes before boarding time. Here we are going to our gate. Jiang Lei is pushing one of the carts but you can't see him because he is too short. We had enough time for a quick sandwich and that was all.



The flight to Frankfurt was fine. Jiang Lei was next to the window, the 3rd seat from the aisle, and he didn't get very much attention. Every time the Flight Attendants came around, he yelled "Ai yee" very loudly and then asked for something. They were quite professional and looked at me first and I said no, he doesn't need that.

We had quite a wrestling match to get his seat belt buckled and to get him to stay in his seat for the plane's take off. He spit at me 3 times but fortunately he wasn't very good at it so mainly he got himself wet. After the seat belt sign went off I let him unbuckle his seat belt and keep it off for most of the remaining flight to avoid screaming. There was a Chinese lady and her daughter sitting behind us and he spent a lot of the flight standing up in his seat and speaking to her. She was very nice and helped a lot. He had about 8 bathroom trips, mainly because he was just bored.

When we arrived in Frankfurt, our luggage didn't show up. There were a few others from our flight also missing their bags so we waited around to see if more were coming. They finally told us that 8 more bags from the flight had been found and so we waited for those to show up. 2 hours after our flight landed, all of our suitcases showed up and we finally headed for home.

When we got home he was fascinated to see the family photos on the walls and he was pointing out Mama, Bab, Nora and Ji Ji to all of us when we walked by. He was very happy with his bed and dresser. There was a small play session in his room before we all went to bed. Mommy had to put her head on his pillow next to his in order for him to fall asleep.