Anybody who has kids knows that there are times where it actually is the destination and the journey is simply something to be endured. We consider our kids to be reasonably well traveled, but having never traveled longer than 3 hours by plane, there was a certain amount of trepidation before embarking on our 9 hour journey from Auckland to Bali.
On this occasion, we wanted to make sure that we were well prepared. Our carry on bag contained pencils and colouring in books, kindles, headphones, lollies and other assorted snacks and obligatory favourite stuffed animals. In addition to the in-flight entertainment, there were high hopes that this would keep the kids engaged and enable us to sneak in some shameless movie watching, so that time for us as well might pass more quickly.
Problem number one presented itself when our youngest, Emily, couldn’t view the entertainment screen on the back of the chair in front of her, despite tilting the screen down as far as possible. Cue, mini-meltdown number one. While propping her up with three blankets from the overhead lockers managed to mostly resolve this problem, this set the scene for the rest of the flight and what was to come.
Elsa and Anna obviously didn’t cut it on this particular day, as barely 40 minutes into Frozen and the dreaded words no one wants to hear, most especially this early into the journey, were uttered… “how much longer to we get there?”.
Now I certainly don’t think I overindulge our kids, but there are some times where for the sanity of a whole bunch of people 12,000 metres in the air with no way of getting off that normal parenting has to take a back seat. All thoughts of watching back to back Hobbit movies literally flew out the window and the ensuing eight hours were spent entertaining our five year old between snatches of book reading.
So what was learnt from what ended up being a long, mostly unpleasant ordeal?
Firstly, when it comes to kids, best laid plans of mice and men most definitely will do awry. It was our normally placid child that decided today was simply going to be one of those days that culminated one hour before landing in a full on meltdown and both mother and child locked in the the plane’s toilet in an improvised “time out”. How did that turn out? Let’s not go there.
So, whilst being prepared certainly beats going in just hoping everything will turn out well, the reality is that kids, or at least our kids, are entirely unpredictable and are going to do what they are going to do. And whilst at the time it might be decidedly unpleasant, we had more sympathetic looks than any other kind as I’m sure most people who have previously had kids and chosen to travel with them have at some point themselves experienced something similar. And for those who are disapproving, who cares it’s not like we chose to go on holiday with them in the first place.
Worse comes to worst, it’s easy enough to console one’s self with the exciting times ahead. After all, as we all know, when it comes to long haul flights, it really is the destination that enables us to endure what goes on beforehand.
Tribe Travelling 