Day 1- Transit

After booking the holiday in early November, the long anticipated Paris adventure has finally begun.  Though with most good things in life, this too was destined to start with struggle, pain and a long waning hope that through all the grief, happiness was somewhere to be found.

We started at Sydney airport at 4:00pm on the 11/06 and have only just arrived at our apartment, at the opposite end of the Earth, at 1.09am Sydney time on the 13/06.  Alas, as the rear of your palm reaches your forehead in shock and awe, the 33 hour transit was not the worst of it, but rather traveling with an eager and excitable infant who places his entire faith in the love he bears for the common faces he would learn to call mum and dad. 

No questions, no quarrels, the youngling, sits with unbridled bravery as he laughs and giggles unbeknownst to the familiar surrounds and routine giving way to a new strangeness not at all understood.  Still, with unwavering loyalty, he excitably looks into my eyes and is reassured.  As he rushes around in a tight circle to discover the wondrous new playground, he looks up in excitement at the new discoveries he has just made and breathes excitably, slapping the ground to begin crawling with lacking coordination.  However, the new playground is very quickly surveyed and the new toys become familiar all too soon. Soon enough the glowing, flashing, wondrous character begins to reflect confusion and bewilderment. Why cant he crawl around in discovery? why cant he sleep comfortably? why cant he see his grandparents?  Slowly, but surely, the glowing, wondering eyes become a listless and dull exhaustion.  As he sits in my lap, dummy whisking in mouth, slowly portioning the resting of his head between my shoulder or my chest, he looks up at me with desperation but flashes the corner of his lip in a tired smile.  Daddy will save me, he is thinking, as he falls asleep for another quickly interrupted rest.

Now we are done with the poetic prose, but needless to say, it was heartbreaking.  Takeoff and landing never affected him and he only whinged when his sleep was disturbed though crying quickly gave way to laughter as he climbs up my shoulder and yells at the plane load of people behind me for a good 10 minutes.  The bassinet is absolutely useless, though a very romantic notion- it doesnt work at all.  On top of the fact that its way too small, every time the seat belt light goes on a stewardess would rush over like she's on mission impossible to tell us we have to take him out for safety reasons.  So after struggling to put the extremely over tired kid to sleep, i would have to wake him up again when there was a teeny bit of turbulance. A stupid rule which is sure to have increased safety risk from pissed parents than from warm air.  He laughed at everyone who said hello and frequently engaged into loud discussion with the plane wall.

Due to the constant amount of attention Solomon needed, no movies were watched, no games were played, no rest was had.  For the 33 hours of transit, we simply juggled the kid to keep him sane. 

The Emirates planes and crew were actually awesome and because we had the forward seats, we had heaps of leg room and place to put Solomon on the floor in front of us.  the food was brilliant, and since Bec was feeling nauseous during any turbulance with her head in a paper bag, i always performed my husbandly duty and finished off her meals.

Solomon only projectile vomited once when we tried to force feed him some decent food and covered my jeans and Becs top.  After that, we only fed him rusks and milk.