Slow versus Quick Death

As I have mentioned earlier, I recently returned from visiting my parents in North Carolina.  My family has a yearly tradition of going to the North Carolina coast for a week each summer, a tradition that we have held since I was born.  As my mother has requested that if we can only come home once, we come for the beach, I arranged to go to the beach.

Initially, Brandon was to come, but plans changed (as they often do), and he had to stay home and work (as he often does).  Not only did that leave me a single parent for two weeks, more importantly, it left me a single parent for two flights.  Which is much more daunting, all things considered.

Everything went a smoothly as can be expected, with minor hitch of having to hand my 3 month old to a complete stranger so I could take off my 2 year-old's shoes lest she be hiding a bomb in her pink sandals.  She is a devious one, that Kathleen.

Everything went smoothly, that is, until we boarded the plane and Sophia began wailing.  That, initially was a blessing, as our seat neighbor quickly moved himself to another seat as far away as possible and left us with the whole row to ourselves.  By the time we were over Nebraska, however, the whole plane wished that they could move themselves as far away as possible, preferably to another plane and leave us to our screaming, wailing, shrieking baby.  

And I reflected, would I rather spend 20 hours in a car with an intermittently crying baby in the back seat, or would I rather spend 2 hours with a child shrieking non-stop in my arms?  I still can't decide.