Kudos to you for that! I will play peek a boo and smile and wave too and have a tolerance for the kids... however after traveling with my friend and my 1 year old god son, I think that I start to put more and more responsibility on the parent to be prepared.

There was a lady with 2 kids (1 baby, 1 probably... 2 -3?) sitting behind us on our non-stop flight from St Louis to Seattle and she hadn't brought a single book, rattle, toy, snack, binky or heck, even a paper cup for the kids to play with. We'd been behind her in the security line, so we knew that she wasn't used to flying and we'd helped her out there a bit, but any smart parent knows that a 2 year old and a baby won't sit quietly for 4+ hours. Heck, I can't sit quietly for 4+ hours!

I cut kids and their parents plenty of slack when it's obvious that they're trying. It's the ones who just aren't that I have less tolerance for - although I know they're not having any more fun than I am at that point.