parenting the long haul

my darling husband is a new yorker of indian extraction and my family is a mixture of pakistani and irish (unusual, i know). this means that we are obligated and expected to travel vast distances with our little thing in order to see all our relatives.

having travelled the long haul a lot in my single years, i developed some excellent coping strategies for flying. obviously i can't underestimate the uncanny knack i seemed to have for being awarded check in desk upgrades. simply turning left onto the plane (business and first) instead of turning right (for cattle class) goes a huge way to easing the burden of a double figures flight time.

should i have to travel in cattle, heaven forbid, the worst sight to await me would be not an overweight, sweaty or lecherous looking neighbour, but People With Kids. my first strategy would be to shamelessly call over the trolley doll and ask to be moved. flashing a press pass and explaining business trip, impending deadline etc often seemed to sway me into another seat while other mortals stayed to endure the screams. the second strategy would be to delve into my flight kit and jam in ear plugs for the duration. not being able to hear a thing does much to preserve a calm state of mind. huge bottles of evian, an assortment of luxury moisturisers and a damn good book would then see me safely through to my destination.

alas, poor mummy. travelling with a little thing, with another on the way, is not a good look. we were those People With Kids. I saw the flashes of panic in our neighbours eyes, I suffered their pain when the little thing wailed with take-off ear ache and I understood the inescapable horror of having to parent the long haul.

just as the seat belt sign came off, we noticed a pervading stink in the cabin. the lady to the left of us had called over the trolley doll to complain. Just as I caught the fellow passenger's dissaproving eye I realised it was nappy stink, I realised it was ours. The hubs went to change the nappy. All well and good. A few pages of the novel, a bit of handcream and oh dear, that's the last of the evian as water comes second place to toys these days.

about 15 minutes later the hubs came back with the little thing naked except for her nappy and vest. "It's not going too well" he said. Oh dear. The little thing had poo'd and pee'd her way through our 2 sets of emergency clothes and (alarmingly, three of our nine nappies) that we'd expected to last the flight. sleep was out of the question as the little thing was wired. none of the cheap new toys we'd bought for the journey held any interest for her, the trolley dolls were smiley but uninterested in our plight, our fellow passengers avoided our eyes and we took turns to break the boredom by walking the little thing around the aircraft.

we staggered off the plane eight hours later. we were exhausted, dehydrated and demoralised. i felt the same kind of disbelief on disembarking as i did after i left the maternity ward. in the hospital i struggled to understand how such brutal pain and agony could co-exist with the outward normality of the unit's day to day cheerful existence. likewise i marvelled at the sheer in-flight horror of being a Person With Kids. it looks bad from the outside, but believe me, the full awfulness can never be revealed until it comes to travelling with your own children.