Needed: Your best plane travel tips for tots

The seats we will not be riding in during our 24-hour sojourn to my motherland.
The seats we will not be riding in during our 24-hour sojourn to my motherland.

The panic dreams have started. Whenever I'm getting ready to do something WAY out of my comfort zone, I'll have a few bizarre, anticipatory dreams that let me know exactly how nervous I am. So last night, when LBZ and I ended up driving through Manhattan in an ice cream truck/doctor's office (don't ask, I don't know)-I realized it could only mean one thing: We're going to India this winter.

I mean, obviously I knew that. I booked the tickets. After seven years of postponing a trip to see my much-missed grandmother, I'm going to finally get to introduce her to my husband and son. The only hitch in this plan? 24 hours of travel time with a just-turned-two-year-old.

I'm no stranger to just how much hatred people can muster for a parent that dares put a young child on a plane, so for those who are thinking of posting "don't go" or "spare the rest of us" or my favorite retort of the truly clueless "drive"-don't bother. Seriously. I would live with a much larger world of regret if my grandmother never met my family than I would if I made a few people uncomfortable with my choices, and yes, that includes you nasty lady who is gearing up to tell me I'm a bad mother and citizen.

That said, I really want this to go well. I'd like my fellow passengers eardrums to stay intact, their seat backs to remain untroubled, and I'd really like my boy to be as happy as possible. So, fellow traveling parents of the world: What are your best travel tips for the little ones that are too young to really get into DVD's and too old to sleep the whole way? Any way to handle a meltdown that's more effective than others? And has anyone ever actually seen a plane with white leather seats, or was the above picture taken on some lost flight to heaven?