Essential Baby blogger Joseph Kelly
Back in the early 1980s, my mum took six of her eight children with her on a trip to Ireland. Thanks to an accidental overdose of sleeping pills administered to me by my sister Paulette, I can’t remember much about the flight.
I do, however, remember that the plane seemed to be a retired Soviet cattle transporter, which had been crudely and inexpertly converted to carry about 1600 passengers in complete discomfort. Surely, I hear you ask, they don’t have planes like that in this day and age? Well, dear readers, I am thankfully still alive to tell you that not only do these crude transportational devises exist, they are in full service from Bangkok to London.
Our flight from Australia to Bangkok couldn’t have gone any better. At the check-in terminal we were told that the airline didn’t like to separate families, so we found ourselves lounging across two rows of seats. The girls couldn’t get enough of the individual television screens and baby Rita slept like a log in her little bassinet. In fact, the only hassle I had was co-ordinating Maisie and Frances’ TV screens so they could watch Hanna Montana in synch. This trip, I confidently thought to myself, was going to be a breeze.
Then we stopped at Bangkok. I should have known something was up when our pram wasn’t there to meet us at the gate as we’d been promised in Australia. After a brief discussion our pram was located and we were back on track to an enjoyable flight. We confidently made our way to collect our boarding passes from our family friendly airline. Yes we could all sit together, we were told, provided that our definition of “together” meant Susie, Frances and Rita in one row with me and Maisie sandwiched in the row behind between two Sumo style bookends. With a full flight, we were told, that was the best we could get. I could already feel the trip lengthening but, I reasoned, the kids will still have plenty to keep themselves occupied with the movie consoles.
After passing through Bangkok customs (an exercise I’m not in any hurry to repeat) we finally got to make our way on board. This is when I had a staggering sense of déjà vu – it was the same plane that my family had travelled in over 25 years before, only older. On the bulk head, directly above Rita’s bassinet, was a large screen designed to entertain the entire flight. The positioning of the screen had the joyous effect of drawing Rita’s attention so that she could baste in a combination of over-excitement and over-tiredness until she spectacularly exploded into uncontrollable hysteria about mid-way through the flight. This effect, we now know, was completely irreversible.
This set off a comic chain reaction that we will no doubt laugh about in, say, 25 years time. With Susie doing laps of the plane in a vain effort to calm Rita, Frances decided she wanted her piece of whatever attention we had left and so decided to chuck the mother of all berkos. In desperation I pulled out our portable DVD player and sat the girls together. This was the catalyst for a long, loud and lively ‘discussion’ about what movie should be played. By now I had so won over all the other passengers, that one active retiree (who no doubt has the world's most perfect grandchildren) took every opportunity she could to walk over to our seats, oversee my tantrum resolution skills, then shake her head disapprovingly at me. I swear if she had opened her mouth to say anything to me I would have force-fed her both Maisie and Frances.
In all, our 13-hour flight netted zero sleep and approximately 7 hours of sustained tantrums. Can’t wait for the flight home.
Should we get on a plane ever again of board a commercial freighter home? Have you ever had a horror flight? Tell us your experiences!
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