Flying in the face of all reason

 For the last couple of weeks I have found it quite hard to think of anything else.

I have been preparing for it with greater concentration and attention to detail than any previous undertaking. I have written copious lists, consulted the doctor, arranged and rearranged supplies and, of course, done a great deal of crucial internet shopping, to Husband’s horror (the packaging! The waste!).

But still I remain nervous and apprehensive about what lies ahead.
And well I should.

For reasons that are not entirely clear to me now, I decided to take the children to Africa to spend a month with my mother.

Husband will remain at home.

Apparently, and I think this is a pathetic excuse, he claims he has to work to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table etc. Frankly, I think he’s making it up and he’s just trying to get out of being helpful.

I should stress at this point that it’s not the month with my mother part that is making me nervous (Nb. Reserve right to do total 180 on that). We have many treats planned, lots of outings, trips to game reserves, beaches, tearooms et al. and most importantly a NANNY lined up to help us. 

It is the prospect, the sheer insanity, of taking a journey alone with two children under five that is going to last over 24 hours, and that’s just the flight time.

You may ask what possessed me? Good question.

Short answer: Dunno.

Long answer: I was having a bad day, no, a bad week/month/whatever and was having a long moan to my mother on the telephone. She kept suggesting gently that perhaps I needed to get away for a bit and it might be nice to bring the children out, we could all have a lovely time, it would be fun, it was summertime and the pool was warm, Four would love the animals etc. The more she said it, the more enticing it sounded, and to be fair, I do always have an extremely agreeable time when I go to visit and there’s nothing like a great exchange rate and lazing about in a place where someone else fusses over you and makes your bed to bolster the spirits. So I suddenly agreed and in a great burst of optimism and enthusiasm found some very reasonably priced flights for the three of us and gaily looked into outings suitable for small children and thought mistily of how right it felt to bring my children back to the land of their ancestors, to place their tiny feet on African soil.

It took a week or so for buyer’s remorse to set in.

I had clearly forgotten that I would not be just zipping over alone from London, taking a sleeping pill on the flight, arriving reasonably rested and then able to sink back into some kind of regressive state where my mother would look after the practical details and I just had to shop, swim, sunbathe and complain like a petulant teenager. This time I would be coming from California with two tiny tyrants, arrive having had no sleep at all and would pretty much be on duty non-stop from thereon in. It was my children who would get to complain petulantly and as for shopping, well, they’re pretty good at sabotaging those kinds of expeditions.

This all happened about four weeks ago and I have spent pretty much every day since frantically thinking up things to keep them quiet and entertained during the flights.

I bought a DVD player that has a monster battery ($180) – that will last about six hours, or until someone spills juice on it. I bought Four a leapfrog, which is a handheld ‘educational’ computer game module, priced at a modest $80 plus $25 for each additional game cartridge – apparently she needs several to keep her brain in tune. Headphones (no guarantee either child will wear them), little child-sized neck pillows in the shape of bears to encourage them to sleep, stacking cups for One in a special travel size, wind-up toys, play-doh, crayons, colour-wonder pens and paper so they can’t draw all over the seats, tons of snacks with just enough sugar to interest them, but not enough to send them loopy. Last night I even dreamed about a toy that has not been invented yet that I had somehow found to bring on board for One.

I will need tons of carry on baggage to hold all this stuff, plus I need to carry a car seat for One who is not big enough to sit on his own in the airline seat but is definitely too heavy and wiggly to sit on my lap for 24 hours. Oh, and the jumbo pack of Benadryl to dose them with at periodic intervals. The paediatrician said it was okay so I’m going to go with that. I read a lot online about people saying it was cruel to drug them, what kind of a mother would do that to her children and I have the answer for them right here:
Me. The desperate kind of mother who will be getting filthy looks from all passengers as her two kids enter a high pitched shrieking contest after 19 hours in the air.

I added up the cost of everything I spent to try to minimize the misery of the flights and it actually would have been cheaper to hire somebody else to sit with them and for me to fly separately. I wish I’d thought of that in the first place.
I have put in a request to the airline for ‘special assistance’, usually reserved for unaccompanied minors, those in wheelchairs or people with other kinds of handicaps. I honestly believe that in this case I qualify. With any luck they will help us with flight transfers, getting on and off the plane and collecting baggage at the other end. I don’t suppose they will take the children away and put them in the pressurised hold with the pets – a pity, they love animals – but any little helps.

We’re off in a couple of weeks. Wish me luck!

We’ll see how many children I have when I get back.