Thanks, everyone for all the helpful tips so far. Really appreciated. I see that I likely made one mistake already... not buying another seat. It's too late now as the flights are booked solid already. However, the longest leg is approx 1 1/2 hours, so shouldn't be too bad between the two of us. My biggest concern has been the ear problems... too much "scarring" from my own experiences when I was young, and then also listening to others when I was in that "old enough to know better but too young to understand" stage. Hopefully everything will go well....
Again, thanks for all the help! ^
counter5g