My “kids” are 12 and 16 so admittedly it’s been some time since I traveled with a one-year-old. But I don’t recall ever having quite the experience I witnessed recently aboard a long flight across country in the same row as an Orange County mom, her Houdini toddler, and her two unsuspecting but incredibly accommodating seatmates from Heaven.

Really. This is the stuff of Breakfast Club-ish movies.

Of seats A, B, and C, she took her seat first, saying ‘hi’ to me across the aisle that separated our assignments and hoping outloud the middle seat would be free so her son could innocently sleep away the five-hour trek from coast to coast in the comfort of his car seat. Realizing we were both seated in the backmost row of the aircraft and the crew was already gate-checking rollaboards, that seemed, to put it kindly, unlikely at best.

Next came her window seatmate, an adorable newish mom leaving her child overnight for the first time ever to go visit a college friend in L.A. Superglue couldn’t bond as quick as these two did – the Getaway Mom relished her instant veteran status and immediately pulled out her iPod to play “Dora” cartoons for the young one, offering parenting tidbits left and right across the empty seat while reaching for photos to share.

Interestingly, the Gucci diaper bag our OC friend carried was conspicuously lacking anything of even marginal entertainment value. Seriously, when I did travel with young ones I brought everything but our backyard basketball hoop on board – this woman had simply a few bottles, a pacifier and diapers. Less is more? (Of a chore for those seated around you, that is?)

Almost until the cabin door closed, it appeared deceivingly like that middle seat was going to stay vacant, until a fashionably scruffy twentysomething fellow sauntered down the entire length of the plane to our little village in the outskirts of the aircraft, where already those of us with arms long enough to reach the lighted pathways to the exits were fetching tossed bottles and pacifiers from the giggly one who’d not only found his throwing arm, but his new sport.

The all-star’s mom looked up at him with guilty, gorgeous Persian eyes like Disney’s Princess Jasmine and offered, “Maybe there’ll be an extra seat you can move to?”

“No worries!” he proclaimed. “I love kids!”

Talk about a charmed life. Never would I have this kind of luck!

The three of them looked like they walked right out of an L.A. casting agency onto the plane. Moreover, each was outdoing the other with their kindness and courtesy. And amazingly, even before takeoff they were identifying shocking parallels in their lives. “You bought your ticket last night? No WAY, I bought mine last night, too.” Hold onto your hat: “Me, too!”

(If I sound bitter, rest assured I’m just jealous.)

Soon, the Flight’s Eve Ticketbuying Fraternity was ordering up cocktails with proportionately less attention being paid to the little tike with every round. Mom was using her designer denim clad legs (in charmingly scuffed riding boots) to try to corral Scooter, but he mastered the duck-and-tuck move before the ocean was out of view from our little oval windows. At one point a uniformed crew member hand-delivered him back to her, in response to which she surprisingly exclaimed her son’s name and pronounced, “That’s THREE time-outs for you when we get home!” while wagging a neatly manicured finger.

As the happy hipsters enjoyed their private party, I continued to play bottle fetch with the fruit of her loins. It was especially fun when it rolled four rows away and we could recruit new players to the team.

As with any village, the one rule of real estate is location, location, location! Ours was located precisely 18 inches from either lavatory door, ensuring much foot traffic and many otherwise-focused visitors passing through. I kid you not, at one point while turned inward to the Melrose Place gang with her back facing the aisle, our multi-tasking mom reached out her hand behind her so that a waiting lavatory-bound passenger could insert the tossed bottle into it, then continued her spirited conversation with her seatmates (castmates?) without missing a beat. Or nary a “thank you.”

You know the best part about sharing your part of the cabin with an aspiring performer/adoring mom of Dora’s #1 fan? The gleeful renditions of every little diddy in the cartoon! During a particularly restless and ear-piercing outburst by Junior, Helpful Mom surprised Helpless Mom by bursting out into song, chanting, “Dora Dora Dora the Explorer!” to the little guy’s awestruck delight. Rugged Man in the middle seat seemed equally impressed. (A feeling I suspect was mutual as every time he left for the restroom, Helpful Mom slipped into her Getaway Mom persona to doctor up her makeup and pop a breath mint.)

But I digress. Rest assured, the entertainment didn’t end there. Did you know in the land of Dora even inanimate objects get their own songs? Heads turned at choruses of “Backpack! Backpack!” and “I’m the map! I’m the map! I’m the map!” while the males big and small of the row clapped their hands. I tried to feign sleep, with “Swiper, no swiping!” and “Lo Hicimos” ringing in my ears, which strangely segued into a jingle dancing in my head from my own children’s past and their beloved Blue’s Clue’s show. “Here’s the mail, it never fails, it makes me want to wag my tail – MAY-YU-ILL!” Ugh, the voices internal and external were ever increasing!

I opened one eye to look around a fourth time for the Candid Camera.

I finally managed to doze off and awoke to the sound of seatbelts unbuckling and the perky trio exchanging cell phone numbers in one hand and using said phones to friend each other on Facebook in the other. I worried for a moment about having fallen down on the job and missing my last shift as binkie/ bottle/ left shoe retriever. But worry not, like the Good Samaritan who anonymously pressed the dropped bottle of milk into mommy’s palm on his way to the facilities, my absence of consciousness went equally unnoticed.

Photo courtesy Dreamstime free stock images