Planes, Trains And Automobiles, Part One – Planes

Miss1 spent most her time at the airport playing Catch Me If You Can. Check out my fancy footwork.

Well, we’re back from Cairns so the self imposed techno blackout is over.

Hello, laptop. Hello, interweb. Hello, sanity. I’ve missed you all.

My beautiful sister flew Tracey and I up to her beachfront caravan park, Pinnacle Village, to help celebrate Darryl’s, her husband’s, 40th. Naturally, because we can’t let ourselves have too much fun, we took Miss1 with us.

This was Tracey’s idea, not mine. A point which became glaringly obvious (as in I was glaring at Tracey) when Miss1 started to play up at the airport while we kicked around waiting for our delayed plane to be given the okay after ‘engineering difficulties’.

Now there’s a phrase I never want to hear again in connection to a plane I’m about to board. My fertile imagination threw together some very creative scenarios based solely on these two words and all the accumulated ads for Air Crash Investigations I’d accidentally seen on the telly. That is, until the futuristic prices of food and coffee in the departure lounge distracted me. Seriously, the croissant was super fresh but the price was straight out of 2023.

After we arrived early at the airport (this deserves far more praise than you might think) and the announcement was made, I scribbled a couple of notes so I could pass on a snippet of how much fun we were having:

Plane has been delayed. Miss1 seems to be furious about this and is screaming and chucking hissy fits all around the terminal. She stomps off and refuses to acknowledge us or look us in the eye. I keep waiting for security to come and question if I’m really her father. Of course, I’ll have to refer that question to Tracey.

I think God must get very busy answering prayers at airports. We don’t want to upset all the people we’re about to fly Jetstar with so, rather cleverly we think, we’re sitting with the Qantas passengers in a different area giving them a scare. You can almost hear the people around us thinking ‘oh God I hope they’re not sitting next to me on the flight’. Meanwhile the passengers from our flight keep looking our way with sympathetic smiles. I wonder if they’ll still be smiling when we line up behind them to board.

On the plane now. I don’t know the physics but time has slowed. We’ve been wrestling Miss1 for an hour. Feels like three. We cleverly bought baby food squeeze packs with us for her to eat. Instead, she’s using them to do some Pro Hart like masterpieces using Tracey and I and our seats as canvases. Tracey just handed the girl sitting next to her a baby wipe because Miss1 launched a gob which landed on the poor girl’s shirt. If I was her I’d be asking Jetstar for a refund.

I just made some snarky remark to Tracey about how relaxing this was, figuring I get to do that because it was at Tracey’s insistence we’ve brought Miss1 with us. I was wrong.

“You know all those times you wouldn’t let me rock her to sleep?” Tracey countered. “Well, this is the result.”

My attempts to contain Miss1 to my lap while Tracey rummaged through our luggage for a nappy – because naturally she waited until everyone was locked up in a pressurized cabin with recirculated air before she dumped that particular bomb – has just resulted in her stamping her delicate little feet repeatedly into my crotch like she was making wine. 

To the man in front of us, whoever you are, when you find that small gob of banana flavoured baby food in your hair later, a gob which just flew out of the top of Miss1’s squeeze bag, I am truly sorry.

Fortunately, the Virgin flight back was much better. Miss1 was much more settled, although she did hilariously manage to chuck up into Tracey’s cleavage just as we taxied out to the runway. And clonk a lovely lady sitting behind us on the head with a full milk bottle. Not as many laughs for that one.

But she didn’t scream and cry and, although my testies still hurt a little, at least they aren’t from any fresh blows.

A fantastic weekend, and I can’t wait to share the rest of it with everyone. But first, sleep.

Miss1 falls asleep 5 minutes before landing. And before you lynch me, she’s drinking the premium priced juice because she finished all the milk an hour ago – we hadn’t planned for an hour and a half delay.

Here’s a link to my sister’s holiday park, which is an hour and a half north of Cairns (half an hour north of Port Douglas) – Pinnacle Village Holiday Park.

When not typing away over here and checking his stats every two minutes Bruce Devereaux hangs out at his ‘BIG FAMILY little income’  Facebook Page.

 ’raising a family on little more than laughs’

 

 

2 Comments

  • Flying with a toddler is so much fun! Haha. So nerve wracking! My grandfather passed a few months ago and we had a sudden, unplanned trip to Tasmania. Which feels like going across the world from WA. The original plan was that my husband would take a few days off work and stay at home caring for the Little Mister while I snuck off interstate with my parents and brother. My mum got wind of this and guilted me into taking him.
    “Oh, but he would cheer everyone up and your Nana may not get another chance to see him…”
    The actual flights went quite well, but the airport shenanigans were the worst! Delayed flights – four hours worth – almost killed us! When we left Tassie, we decided that my Nan is not allowed to kick the bucket for a few more years – not only because we love her so much, but because the Little Mister needs to be older before flying again!!

What do you think?

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.