So why not allow people with children to get pre-screened a few days in advance of their trip? I would totally take Milo somewhere and have him x-rayed if it would allow me to bypass airport screening a few days later. A new program called Clear does something like this, allowing pre-approved passengers to bypass regular security lines by presenting their fingerprints and irises for scanning. Once screened, passengers still need to pass through metal detectors and send their luggage through x-ray machines, although ostensibly the line is shorter. The program is only in eight airports around the country, and it costs $99.95 a year to join. Still, if it means shaving off half an hour of pre-flight standing-around-with-squirmy-children time, I imagine a lot of parents would be first in line to sign up.

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Simplifying the guidelines for what one can bring on the plane would also help immensely — even better would be if the TSA put together a pamphlet on traveling with children that addressed issues like whether frozen breast milk is a liquid or a solid, whether Gerber's Fruit Medley is a legal baby food or an illegal dessert, and what to expect in terms of shoe removal policy.

The TSA website does provide some basic guidelines for traveling with small children, such Women traveling alone with young children must fall into some kind of Highly Unlikely To Blow Up The Plane category. as "Do not pass your child to our Security Officer to hold" and "Our security officers will not test or taste formula, breast milk or juice." However, the site repeats the vague rule that baby food and assorted drinkable liquids are acceptable in a "reasonable" amount, and does not in any way acknowledge that the screening process can be random and wildly variable from screener to screener, meaning that one screener might wave you and your value size tub of Triple Paste through, while another confiscates a single container of YoBaby.

Consistency would help calm everyone's nerves and allow them to be more prepared for the security checkpoints, but so would common sense. For example, the TSA could stop pulling over women traveling alone with young children, who must fall into some kind of Highly Unlikely To Blow Up The Plane category, for those randomized screenings that happen just as you're about to finally step foot onto the jet way.

And just maybe, if parents and their small children are allowed to glide through security a bit quicker, no one will suggest that you take out the Baby Benadryl. You won't want to kill your kids before the plane even takes off. I won't go so far as to suggest that there might be a day when traveling with small children is enjoyable, unless your idea of fun is reading the emergency landing instructions pamphlet twenty-seven times in a row to a toddler who thinks it's a comic book, but maybe at least there would be fewer arrests.