The Airport
Our immediate family came out to the airport which was all fine till the time actually came to say good-bye. Emotions were high, tears were flowing and embraces were heartfelt. This is when you second guess yourself again- Why were we doing this? To miss out on your family and friends, the family dinners, birthday celebrations, unplanned drop-ins, early dinners with friends and their kids and the occasional but highly revered 'no kid' dinners. . . . Oh my God, it better be worth it!
Once we got through security and it was just the 4 of us, Simon & I had to push emotions aside and get on with the job at hand. We had 2 kids under 4 and were looking at approx 24 hours before we walked in the hotel door. Our itinerary: 1200hrs domestic flight to Sydney, 1.5hr stop over, 14 hr flight to L.A, 1.5 he stop over, 3ish hr flight to Houston, Texas, 30 min drive to Hotel. We were dreading the next 24 hours especially with Liam who wakes up and runs around from the moment he wakes till the moment he hits the pillow, how on earth were we going to contain him? Furthermore, because he was under two he didn't actually get his own seat so he had to be content to sit on our laps!! Ha and double Ha. I had asked around to many mums who had travelled and taken on a lot of tips - the most consistent being drugs, drugs and more drugs! My older sister Nicole gave me the most practical tips (Nicole has 3 kids under 6, lives in Hong Kong and often legs it back to Oz by herself with the kids - we call her superwoman). They were fantastic so I'm going to list them because they may help you one day (for those of you that don't give a brass razoo skip to the next paragraph):
- during your wait time to get on the plane run your kids wild ie. chasey. There about to spend umpteen hours sitting down - expend some energy
- take your own sippy cups on the plane. Same size cups are used for kids and adults, Nic learnt this the hard way and basically had two drenched kids for 3/4 of her flight home
- which leads on to . . a spare set of clothes and undies
- a couple of plastic rubbish bags because there's never enough room at the back of seats and kids create more rubbish than the stewards do rounds
- new small toys and activities, take them out of the packaging to save on bulk but wrap individually so you can spread them out over the flight and not have them all played with and bored with in the 1st hour
- take the kids to the toilet before the meal run because the aisle could be blocked for 40 mins otherwise
- If you need a bottle warmed, bassinette pulled out etc asked for steward help 30-40 mins prior to time needed - often there's a wait
- Take along plenty of food and nibbles - airlines meal times don't run to children's eating timetable. Be prepared to dump unused food at end of flight
- Take drugs/phenergan and measurer
- Walk your kids up and down the aisles, again and again if you have to
Up, up and away...
The domestic trip to Sydney turned out to be a bonus the kids liked the take off and landing and the scenery was changing pretty quickly. The kids loved watching all the planes around the airport and each bit of movement was met with squeals of delight. Again, we walked around as much as we could in Sydney. On the LA leg we managed to secure 3 out of 4 bulkhead seats so some poor soul was stuck with us. The mood had been set when we got to our seats and a mid 60ish lady in the 4th seat mutters "$960 dollars, 14 hours and I get stuck ....." Simon & I were able to fill in the blanks as she stormed off down the aisle to complain. Turns out the plane was full so we were stuck with her and she with us. Well I reckon it was the extra foot of leg space that saved us, Simon & I sat as book ends with a leg each on the wall to barricade them in. Ashley was just happy to watch the in-house entertainment (a million different kids channels) and Liam just went back and forth, up and down or would just lie on the ground and sing and chat. The first toy I gave them was a toy phone which surprisingly lasted them a good 4 hours! The kids had gone without their midday sleep and done surprisingly well, around 7ish we did a phenergan round, Liam was in the basinette and asleep by about 8pm after which he slept 9 hours and had to be woken on arrival to LA (God bless him). Ashley silently fought the phenergan (and top ups) in favour of the Disney channel but eventually fell off to sleep at about 11 for about 4 hrs. We slept you can in cattle class. With about 3 hours to go the lady next to me, sweet as could be, turns and says "you're children have been wonderful" and proceeded to talk non-stop till we landed. Retrospect is a wonderful thing!
Oh forgot to mention, met another Aussie on the plane who was walking around with her child and stopped to chat with us. She was lovely and very chatty, in fact came back a few times to catch up with us and get the kids talking. Her husband stopped by our seats at one point as well. We didn't swap numbers but you could say we're practically best friends by the end of the flight. She had one of those faces that you remembered but couldn't place however we soon realised that the friendship that was starting to grow was actually with actress Rachel Griffith!!
The domestic trip to Sydney turned out to be a bonus the kids liked the take off and landing and the scenery was changing pretty quickly. The kids loved watching all the planes around the airport and each bit of movement was met with squeals of delight. Again, we walked around as much as we could in Sydney. On the LA leg we managed to secure 3 out of 4 bulkhead seats so some poor soul was stuck with us. The mood had been set when we got to our seats and a mid 60ish lady in the 4th seat mutters "$960 dollars, 14 hours and I get stuck ....." Simon & I were able to fill in the blanks as she stormed off down the aisle to complain. Turns out the plane was full so we were stuck with her and she with us. Well I reckon it was the extra foot of leg space that saved us, Simon & I sat as book ends with a leg each on the wall to barricade them in. Ashley was just happy to watch the in-house entertainment (a million different kids channels) and Liam just went back and forth, up and down or would just lie on the ground and sing and chat. The first toy I gave them was a toy phone which surprisingly lasted them a good 4 hours! The kids had gone without their midday sleep and done surprisingly well, around 7ish we did a phenergan round, Liam was in the basinette and asleep by about 8pm after which he slept 9 hours and had to be woken on arrival to LA (God bless him). Ashley silently fought the phenergan (and top ups) in favour of the Disney channel but eventually fell off to sleep at about 11 for about 4 hrs. We slept you can in cattle class. With about 3 hours to go the lady next to me, sweet as could be, turns and says "you're children have been wonderful" and proceeded to talk non-stop till we landed. Retrospect is a wonderful thing!
Oh forgot to mention, met another Aussie on the plane who was walking around with her child and stopped to chat with us. She was lovely and very chatty, in fact came back a few times to catch up with us and get the kids talking. Her husband stopped by our seats at one point as well. We didn't swap numbers but you could say we're practically best friends by the end of the flight. She had one of those faces that you remembered but couldn't place however we soon realised that the friendship that was starting to grow was actually with actress Rachel Griffith!!
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