I'll start with the flights seeming yesterday's flight is still fresh in my brain box. The flight from Sydney was possibly the best flight I've ever done. Seriously. I bought these "sea bands" - pressure point bands that combat nausea. I had them as a kid, and they weren't the most successful thing, possibly because you need to wear both for them to be effective, but when mum bought them she gave me one and Bec the other. But anyway, because of the breastfeeding and the fact I needed to be concious for the flight to look after the little owl, I gave them a second chance. They worked decently. They work for morning sickness too apparently, which I'd known that last year. Anyway, so I wasn't sick, and the flight left in the morning during Isis's happy time, so we started off on the right foot. The flight attendants were lovely, boarding us first, teaching us safe-flying with a baby and all the rest. Now, there are two baby bassinets on a boeing 777. That's it. Two. For a 14+ hour flight. Who's idea was that shit? But the website says "first come first served". So we got to the airport early and... someone was smarter than us and booked online at home
When we got on, we were seated next to this mum with a six-month old the size of a horse (who could stand. Isis is way off standing. Maybe I'm a little jelly). She was doing a fantastic job. I kind of hoped we could make friends and maybe share the bassinet. (Because holding a baby for that long would suck so so bad)
Anyway, the flight attendant let us know the other bassinet hadn't been booked and after we took off the couple that were sitting near it swapped with us so we could use it. Yay! It helped, but every time there's turbulence you have to take the baby out, even if she's fast asleep. The other thing that was awesome is the bassinets are in the front row, so there's massive leg space. I couldn't even reach the wall! Not that I need space for my legs because well... when I sit in the chairs I lose circulation to my feet because they only just reach the floor (I sit with my feet on my handbag the whole flight to avoid this lol) but it was good because it gave us room to play with Isis or to stand and bounce her without being in the way, or to lay her down for a swaddle and stuff. Nice!
At the end of the flight several people came up and said we had a great baby, they never heard her cry, we did a fantastic job, yadda yadda. It was really great.
The way back? Not so much. The flight leaves at 11:45pm. So Already the baby was cranky, ready for a bath and bed. We booked online for seats but the bassinet ones were taken, we figured we'd sort it out at the airport. By we I mean Obi
Anyway, when we're waiting at the gate I realised why almost all the seats had been booked when we'd logged on.. It's technically a connecting flight. They market it as a direct flight from Sydney to Van, but it goes on to Ontario after a quick break (I assume for fuel) so of course on the way home it's coming from Ont, where the people there have already had a head-start on choosing seats (as you can only book them 24 hours in advance). Well shit.But Canadians are renowned for being nice. Too fucking nice half the time, so I had hoped someone would swap with us and help us out. As far as I could see there was only one other baby - some poor stressed woman with a tiny boy who didn't get her connection to NZ - she was going to come to Aus then bounce back to kiwi-land. I didn't envy her, poor chick. Anyway so they load us onto the plane and we juggle ourselves into the third row, next to a very unimpressed business man. Isis is already crying. Great. He looks at her and says "I wish I'd gotten my upgrade". He was a chatty Cathy, apparently he does this flight every 28 days for work and he always flies first class, but he booked too late this time and missed out. While he was telling Obi his whole life story I manage to get a boob into my screaming brat's face and we took off. She fell asleep. So Cathy endured maybe ten minutes of crying. I knew I'd done fairly decently. If you get in the air without your baby crying with the pressure change, you're pretty awesome. Fact.
Anyway, so we noticed that three rows ahead of us the people sitting in the bassinet spot didn't have a kid. So we asked the attendants to swap us. And the attendant is like "I'll ask but they'll say no. They pay extra for the leg room." Uhm what? I didn't pay extra on the way over... he then tells us you can't choose to pay extra to get a bassinet. Cathy wasn't thrilled to hear we weren't moving and starts his own whispered conversation with this guy.
Some time later the flight guy comes back and he's like there's a seat in front of you free and a seat behind, feel free to use them. So, essentially, one of us would stay with the baby who would have her own seat to lay on, and the other would be in the very center in the next row, having to ask someone to move every time the other of us required help with the baby. (We double team everything so neither of us suffer too much.) We chose not to do that because the idea is to annoy people less, not more. A couple of hours in, Isis wakes up, and cries. Couldn't have been for more than two minutes before I got it under controlled but Cathy clearly had an issue. We apologised of course, and he was polite, accepting that babies cry, it's not our fault - but he stepped up his effort to get moved none the less. While he was waiting he gave us 7000 ebooks because he saw I had a kindle, so that was nice.
Eventually he was moved, but he'd come back for the landing. Cool, Obi moved over and we could lay Isis between us. And we didn't have to pick her up when turbulence came, so that was nice. She slept a lot, but every time she was awake she was unhappy, didn't want to play or be entertained. Neither of us had gotten much sleep the night before either, so I was very close to snapping at one point. I'm standing with her, trying not to fall on my face during the turbulence, and this old bat a few rows back is glaring at me the whole time. Fuck you woman. So I smiled at her. She glared harder. I hope I added another wrinkle to her face.
At one point I'm waiting for the loo, so I can change my brat (who was quiet, yay) and I saw Cathy settling in to his new seat. I guess he didn't see me standing two feet directly in front of him or he didn't care. He tells his new row-friends "I had to move because I was next to a screaming baby..." I missed a bit of the exchange, then he nods and says "Yeah, young parents, you know..." I moved away to save my blood pressure. While I was there I saw the other mum, she didn't have a bassinet either and her baby was crying the house down. I could hear him when we were sitting down, and she was right at the back of our section. I felt so bad for her. The other bassinet seat also was taken by someone without a child. Fuck you people, you think you have the right to glare and complain but you won't help the parents around you by giving them the best chance of keeping their kids happy?
Near the end Isis was having a melt-down, and fussed almost non-stop for an hour. It wasn't all screaming thankfully, but it was stressful. I finally got through to her by sitting her in my seat and kneeling in front of her (no mean feat seeing the person in front of me had reclined his seat as far as it could go!) Obi goes to me later "Everyone who saw you do that wishes they were as skinny as you" which was nice; I'm feeling fat after all the pie and donuts I inhaled in Canada lol.
All totaled she cried for under two hours that flight, but it felt like more. The average baby cries for three hours a day, so we got our quota up, that's for sure. I'm glad I don't have to do it again for a while.
I've got the guilts hard now we're home though. The international guilt. Oh my god! It's something I never put much thought into before we closed the distance, but I get it terribly. Obi's family is posting all these things on facebook about how they miss us already, and how Isis will be so different when they see her next year - if they do. And I just feel so terrible. I was telling Obi about it though and he threw me off with what he said. He goes "I'm happy to be back. Two weeks was enough, I'm done. Three weeks would have been too long." So that was... good... I guess. But yeah.
The flights are feeling shorter though. I guess you do get better with practice. That's enough for now.
Stay tuned for more ramble haha.
I had a peek a booer on the way home in front of me. The first time was okay but then the brat kept doing it. I might have been able to tolerate it longer if the kid had at least been cute.