Not brave at all

Whenever I have flown to Australia by myself with Téo, at least one of you has made a comment along the lines of You are very brave making the trip by yourself. I have always replied No, not really, Téo is very easy on the plane and anyway I wanted to see you.

After the two-hour flights to and from the UK, one by myself with both kids, I can assure you that really, I AM NOT BRAVE. If Téo had been like Lukan, I really don't know that I would have made the trip to Australia by myself so many times.

We call Lukan "little pest" and "little monster", but actually, Téo was the more abnormal one. We never even had to baby-proof our house once he got mobile - he was usually only interested in toys, and the few times he went to touch a non-toy, we just had to say uh-uh-uh, that's not a toy and he'd stop.

For the most part Lukan sees toys as pesky objects that must be swiped aside in order to get to everything else. Especially electrical items.


We have tried the uh-uh-uh, that's not a toy strategy, but all this has taught him is to say uh-uh when he touches forbidden items. And he really is a pest... in the hotel on our last night in Scotland, he dropped Téo's socks into the toilet bowl, then fished them out and played with them. Which wouldn't have been so bad, except that we hadn't flushed the toilet after using it.

Not being very interested in toys is bad enough for a long plane trip, but Lukan is also a wriggler. Ever since he was a baby, he has never once sat still in a lap. Téo is also usually very active, but there are two things that sink him into a happy, still stupor: Swampy and the television.

So a long plane trip is heaven for Téo - he is allowed to have Swampy AND watch television for hours and hours and hours. On our flight to Dallas when he was 18 months old, he didn't even want to leave his seat once.

Lukan doesn't have a Swampy and is not interested in the television.

The flights to and from the UK were not fun for him. He wanted to crawl, he wanted to touch everything, he wanted to whack everything. Then he screeched when he didn't get his way.

This was bearable for 2 hours, but for a flight that's 10 times longer? Where I won't sleep for at least 30 hours? And with 2 kids to look after? I just don't know that I'm brave enough to do it alone.