Mega-Finn vs. Croco-Edie

The flight home from Key West was relatively uneventful.  I say "relatively" because there was no vomiting and/or minimal unhappy screaming.  What there was, was lots and lots of happy squealing, attempts to use the teeny tiny legroom area in front of all three of us as a Pack & Play, baby led weaning (e.g., food ground into every square inch of Row 28), and lots of very precarious Bloody Mary drinking.

Those things really stain.

For a claustrophobe like me, it's clear that 4 increasingly active people in 3 seats is not a thing that I will ever do again.  Unfortunately, you can't just buy another seat midflight, so it was very clear that if we were going to survive the flight, one thing needed to happen:  Edie needed to learn to watch TV.

Finding Nemo on the iPad actually calmed her down for far longer than we would have expected, given that Finn wouldn't watch TV at all until he was like three years old.  Of course, her attention was in large part driven by our vice hold on her body.  Nothing makes you feel more like an "enlightened" parent than physically aiming your child's head at a screen and holding it in place while they cry, screaming "WATCH TV, DAMMIT!"

Of course, on an airplane, you're screaming that in your head.  Screaming out loud does not equal free drinks from the flight attendants, and those are also critical to the plan.

Throughout all of this, I couldn't help but look lovingly at my son, who was sitting quietly, happily watching Nemo for the 345,874 time.  I don't even think he had his headphones on.  As long as there are pretty pictures to stare at, he doesn't care.  In fact, as I type this, he's sitting in the basement watching Return of the Jedi for the third time in two weeks.  It's amazing - even if he won't admit that Empire Strikes Back is better.

Unfortunately, Finn's TV watching has advanced to such a point that I'm finally starting to get a little bit concerned that perhaps we've gone too far, too fast.  Instead of Dinosaur Train or Jake and the Neverland Pirates, he now regularly requests Star Wars or the Avengers.  Or Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus.

Don't judge me on that last one.  He really likes the movie and it's too crazy to actually take seriously.  That said, I did have to ask him to turn off Sharknado after that shark came flying through the restaurant window and ate that tourist.  Even I have limits.

The best part of all of this is watching Netflix's recommendation engine try to make sense of a watcher that equally enjoys family animation and SyFy monster films.  Finn may single-handedly be responsible for your slow Netflix performance at home, as the computer tries to figure him out.

Sorry about that.