The 12 hour flight

I recently took the very brave 12 hour plane ride alone with a toddler to visit my family in the UK. For weeks building up to the flight, everybody (myself included) was worried about how I would cope with little miss tjankie on the plane. We even tried to get a doctor's prescription for something called Valagan which is supposed to knock the kid the hell out. Eventually the date of departure arrived and I settled on giving her 2.5ml zyrtec, 2.5ml stopyne, and sister Lilian's trusted homeopathic rescue rest remedy. Our flight was on the night 22h40 and fortunately they had the good sense to let all the many many passengers travelling with babies and children to board first because as they diplomatically put it we "may need a little more time to board". This worked out great, because it gave me time to get us all settled and then while everybody else was boarding I could put Sumayah to sleep standing in front of the seat (always ask for a bulk head seat when travelling with kids). So by the time we had to buckle up for take off Sumayah was fast asleep. She is too big for a bassinet, so I had to sit with her sleeping on my lap the entire time. But I didn't mind one bit, because she was a little angel! She slept and slept the entire time while the 4 year old behind us screamed her little lungs out midway through the flight. The hardest part was when she was awake the last 3 hours of the flight, but at least most of the passengers were waking up by that time. So I walked up and down the aisles with her a few times and she was so cute, because she would see the people sleeping and and put her finger on her lips saying 'sshh!'. Of course when we landed I had to wait till everybody passed us in the aisles so I could collect all our things and get myself comfortable. I took my pram along expecting it would be ready when we exit the plane, but they had already taken everything to the baggage claim. Anybody travelled to UK before know what a looong walk it is to the baggage claim area, so it was not fun to carry Sumayah and my coat and my nappy bag and handbag all that way. Fortunately I had a backup plan, I bought a carry thing at pep stores for 39 bucks that allowed me to carry Sumayah on my back while I filled out the arrivals card. The perk of travelling with a child is that you don't need to queue at emigration. The minute they saw me with my parcel on my back they sent me straight to the front. Then finally, the best part of my journey... walking through the terminal doors and seeing my brother, sister and parents standing at the end of the stretch eagerly anticipating our arrival with huge smiles on their faces. And the moment Sumayah met her grandparents for the first time... priceless. Apparently we brought just a little bit of warmth with us because the temperature bumped up from the minus degrees to a whole 7 degrees... believe me, that is warm here. So here I am posting from the comfort of my parents' home while my daughter enjoys getting to know her ma, papi, uncer meez, and aunty... and of course the cat Casper (known to Sumayah as Gabber).