Look, up in the sky! Is it a bird, is it a plane…
In case you weren’t aware, our son was originally conceived in Bali. You can read about it here. The video tape is available for download, as soon as I can work out how to get the tape back out of our old VCR. I’ve tried jemmying it out with an old bread-knife but it just won’t budge, maybe you just have to imagine it…wait…screw that! (That’s not helping, either. Move along, nothing to see here). So, now our boy is about to turn the big…ONE…we thought it only fair he gets to see Bali…from the outside.
Our three hour wait at the airport turned into five hours, once we learned that we had a plane ready for boarding, but no crew to fly the damn thing. True. Either there’s a shortage of pilots graduating from flying school, they slept in, were drunk at the bar (or heaven forbid), they got in the wrong airplane and after realising their error, jumped out at 20,000 feet. Or they saw a couple guys with moustaches and said, “Hey, what size shirt do you take? Do you like epaulettes?” At any rate, the airline gave us food vouchers and Indy entertained and charmed the irritated passengers with his show-off shenanigans in the Gate Lounge before we were finally underway. (Where on earth does he learn such behaviour?)
Around the 30 minute mark, the fear and terror gripped me…
“Can you go change Indy’s nappy?”
Egad…well, if Superman can do it, then so can I. And sweeping my kid up into my arms, we strode in hero-mode slow motion toward the smaller-than-a-phone-box loo at the back of the plane. You’ve gotta be effing kidding me! Superman can NOT get changed in here, let alone turn around and lock the door without at least three sides of your body pressing against a wall. And when the baby change table flips down above the toilet like the tray table on your seat (with NO SEAT BELT or non-slip surface of ANY description), it was gonna be fun.
Suffice to say that the one thing I didn’t eventuate into my thinking when packing the nappy bag for the plane (and a rookie mistake by far), was the possible suggestion that my son and I would be the latest inductees into the NEW Mile-High Club. The one where your kid pees all over his own clothes and mine at 20,000 feet.
Congratulations! We’re in the club 😉
The rest of the flight went without incident and Indy slept most of the way. When he was awake, he was just brilliant. Playing peek-a-boo with the folks behind us, watching Winnie The Pooh on my iPad and handled the whole thing with grace and ease, with a few cheeky grins thrown in.
I’m just not sure why everyone around us keeps looking at us. I like the smell of asparagus in the morning midnight flight.
Brilliant post!
I’ve been there man. From Australia to England with an 18month old. She was an angel for most of it but she did choose the last flight (when we were all exhausted) to have the biggest poo she’s ever had in her life! Seriously, it was about the size of her own torso! And to make it even more interesting… I only had four bum-wipes left. Absolute nightmare. We had to do the change with her standing up as there was absolutely no way in the world she could lie down in that space!
We’re waiting until the little man is toilet trained before we attempt the trip again with two kids!
Oh, Alex. What a situation. I feel for you. Thank god it was only number ones for us, but it’s situations like yours that makes me wonder why the airlines don’t give you a little extra elbow room, a dispenser of nappy wipes on the wall and a strap to hold them down so in the unexpected occurrence of turbulence, you aren’t repainting the inside walls a peculiar shade of brown (or weird orangey-brown or that matter).
Lol LMAO hillarious