Hate airports and flying? I did, until I discovered the way to add excitement to an otherwise tedious ordeal: Bring along a small child. After a recent family trip from Vermont to Baltimore, I can say with conviction that flying with a youngster adds a level of exhilaration that I never felt when traveling alone.

My 3-year-old took to the experience as soon as she learned it would take two flights to get us to our destination. For her, two flights in one day meant double the fun. For me, prone to panic during takeoffs and landings, the second flight represented nothing more than two extra chances to plunge straight into the gaping jaws of death. My husband got all uptight and insisted this was "too morbid" to keep repeating to a child, so I did my best to keep my fears to myself. (During the take-off of the first flight, however, I let out a brief shriek so piercing that oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling in rows 7 through 15, and I yanked both arm rests off my seat. But once we were airborne, I was fine.)

On this trip, I learned why families with small children are asked to board flights first. It's because airlines know how much the kids appreciate that extra 10 or 15 minutes confined to their seats. And, if you're as lucky as we were to be grounded by fog at the end of the runway, your child may get up to an hour and a half of additional seating time, without even leaving the ground!

I worried that our rather active child might bother the other passengers, but, as it turned out, they loved her to pieces. One person called her energy level "remarkable." A few passengers were even kind enough to move to the back of the plane during the flight so she could have more room to do somersaults. Strangers can be so considerate. Since we were having such a ball with just her, I figured traveling with more kids could only heighten the fun. I was right. A family came aboard with a school-age child, two toddlers, and an infant, and they made a real party of it. In fact, the mother ordered her first screwdriver before the plane even took off. By the time the flight was over, she had laughed herself practically to tears. Makes a person almost wish for more kids, doesn't it?

Airports have changed a lot since 9/11; they have become safer, and much more fun. I enjoyed the full benefit of enhanced security when my shoes set off the metal detector in Burlington and I got frisked in front of everyone at gates B-1 and B-2. My daughter begrudged me all the attention, but fortunately, she got the same treatment at BWI Airport. She was thrilled; it 's not every day a preschooler gets to be handled like a security risk. The screeners even confiscated an old Cheeto from her coat pocket, but after close examination, they deemed it too stale to be considered a potential weapon. It was returned to us unharmed as we boarded.

The final thrill came when we had just boarded our last flight. All passengers were asked to evacuate because the ground crew had found a "suspicious white powder" in the cargo hold. Even though the powder turned out to be cream of tartar that had leaked out of someone's baking supplies, we weren't disappointed. How many 3-year-olds get to see a real haz-mat team at work? Plus it gave us a bonus hour in the terminal, where our budding entertainer practiced leaping over the other passengers' carry-on luggage while delighting them with her incessant chatter. Several people remarked that a child like her is just about impossible to ignore. I, aglow with pride, could only agree.

On the final flight, as our little darling kicked out a crowd-pleasing rhythm on the seatback in front of her, I relaxed and reflected with a smile on our airline experience. To think my mother had warned us against bringing our daughter. Of course, having taken me on only one plane trip when I was small, Mom must have forgotten what fun traveling with kids can be. Or maybe she's just one of those people who prefer exhilaration in smaller doses.

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