I left my own travel story comment; the short version of an event that occurred almost exactly 6 years ago. It’s a story that’s been sitting on my iPhone “Writing List” for a good while. Mrs Woog’s post finally gave me the push to write it. (Thanks for the kick up the arse Woogsy).
I often hear childless people commenting that parents shouldn’t bring children on planes. Shame on you all.
I have few clear memories of the journey from Dublin to Melbourne. Post trauma induced amnesia I think. I am returning home, bringing my Irish partner and our 14 month old son here to live. The whole journey takes something like 32 hours, door-to-door. R and I don’t sleep on planes. Terrific.
Dublin, Birmingham, Dubai, Singapore, Melbourne.
Child is too big for a crib and too small to sit in a plane seat without help. So we take a car seat with us and strap that into each seat. We each carry a backpack and I have one extra bag. On each plane. All four of them.
Birmingham
The flight from Birmingham to Dubai is delayed by four hours. Now we have a hyper 14 month old to entertain for four hours.
We’re carrying loads of on board luggage. Spare clothes, nappies, bottles, instant formula, water, medicines, entertainment. The weight off all those accusing eyes saying “HOW DARE YOU BRING A BABY ON BOARD A PLANE”.
We think about walking but we don’t own any scuba gear. Or a submarine.
My face when we found out we had a 4 hour delay |
A woman in front of the child turns around and asks us to stop him from kicking the back on her chair. We sympathise. We have no clue how to stop a 14 month old doing anything. It’s one of the great mysteries of science. Controlling kids.
Dubai
It’s 8am and about 40 degrees. In a cruel twist there’s no aerobridge. So, a bag in one hand, backpack on back plus a car seat in other hand, I WALK out to the plane on the tarmac.
I walk up the steps to the plane and feel my hypermobile hips rotate, one after the other, as I climb. "There go my hips" I say faintly to my partner. He’s wrangling a feverish 14 month old monster and two bags himself.
Singapore.
Nothing…
Finally the last leg... nobody except the child has slept.
He's feverish (and we are incoherent with exhaustion). Six hours from Melbourne, I smell THE SMELL. Yes, the child has filled his nappy. I pick him up and queue FOREVER for the only toilet with a change table. I stand in a faint green haze of fetid stench, avoiding eye contact.
Oh god please hurry!
OH MY GOD SHE NEEDS TO CHANGE THAT NAPPY IT STINKS!
Hint: The nappy in question looked nothing like this |
I finally get there. Lock the door. Wrestle the pathetic excuse for a change table down - it's more like a toothpick than a table, designed specifically to endanger your child and make nappy changing virtually impossible. I lay the child precariously on it.
OH MY GOD.
The nappy has exploded. All over his front, up his back. Now smeared all over the front of my t-shirt as I'd been clutching him, waiting for the toilet, swaying in a sleep-deprived fugue of desperation.
Now I have to somehow clean him up - with only baby wipes - in a space barely large enough to move an inch in any direction. In the bin go his old nappy, almost a whole packet of wipes, and his clothes.
New nappy on. Sorted.
Now for me. When I'd packed the cabin luggage I had loads of stuff for the child. Then comes to horrifying realisation. I HADN'T PACKED SPARE CLOTHES FOR ME.
So now I'm washing out my shit-covered t-shirt in a plane toilet while balancing my child, for his safety, wedged against a wall with my thigh.
And now I'm putting my shitty wet t-shirt back on. And praying that nobody else can smell what I can smell.
I finally finish up and exit the toilet, to the icy stares of a dozen people waiting for the toilet.
HOW DARE SHE NEED TO CHANGE THAT CHILD’S NAPPY.
I’m sure they were wondering what the hell took so long. Some might also be wondering why I took a clothed baby in and brought a naked baby out.
I stalk back to our seats. Partner asks why I'm wet. I fix him with a steely gaze and reply "Nappy explosion". A fellow passenger beside us laughs.
I sit down and ponder, with six hours of shitty wet t-shirt travel left, how many years I'd get for strangling that guy. Preferably with my shitty wet t-shirt.
Next time you’re on a plane and grumpy that someone has brought a baby on board
– put yourself in their shoes (or shitty wet t-shirt, if you like) and cut
those parents some slack.