All posts tagged: #travel

On Leave

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(Originally published in the May/June edition of NZ Little Treasures Magazine) With the memories of a nightmare flight with Tilly still causing me to break into a cold sweat, I vowed to never fly again until our children were old enough to be reliably distracted by entertainment. Then a chance arose to go on a short, child-free holiday with my sister-in-law and nephew (adult, totally self-sufficient and non-tantrum-throwing), and we tripped over ourselves in our haste to agree to go. I was ridiculously excited about the actual flight and wouldn’t shut up about how I was going to eat a meal while it was hot, watch a current movie, and go to the toilet all alone without a baby climbing up on my lap nor a three year old standing in front of me demanding we count how long my wees go for. I could barely fathom thoughts of sleeping in a hotel bed right through the night, in clean sheets that I didn’t have to launder. As for choosing activities without a thought for …

Up and Away

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(Originally published in the March/April edition of NZ Little Treasures Magazine) It’s possible that parental affection combined with the passing of several decades had made memories fuzzy, but apparently I was The Best Ever Travelling Baby. Having heard family stories such as “the time we landed in Singapore and all the other passengers gasped in surprise because they had no idea there was a baby on the plane” and “the time you slept all the way to Hawaii”, I hoped my own babies would inherit my magical travelling gene. With a small degree of trepidation, we took Amy on her first long-haul flight when she was six months old. Six months: that magical age where they still sleep quite a bit and can’t move anywhere by themselves. The ratio of adults to children was 4:1 (we flew with my parents), we had a bassinet, three massive carry-on bags of books and toys, and even though we went through every single change of clothes thanks to reflux, I chalked the mission up as a success. So …