I emptied out my wallet today. It is a ridiculous and impractical wallet for a mother with three children and a growing number of loyalty cards. It was just so cute I couldn't resist, I have somewhat of a weakness for wallets... This one was a small hard cover wallet that has a clasp to open it, it has a funky black, silver and rainbow leopard print that won me over- that and the $10 price tag. The main catch being you can fit about 2 cards comfortably in it...actually it was really more of an iphone cover than a wallet, but if you put the iphone in there, then there is REALLY no room for anything else. Anyway, I digress! I shifted all the contents from the impractical wallet and was putting them in my brown leather, passport wallet, which I also love and purchased last year partly because it had different compartments, like a mini filing cabinet, which was perfect as we were utilising a cash only budget at the time. It also had the added benefit of being ready to go for our big family trip to Canada last year- a great way to keep all our passports and airplane tickets together and safe. Emptying out the passport wallet of all our now obsolete plane tickets and baggage receipts got me thinking back to our epic travels last year...I had fully intended, on returning home to make my very first blog back in Australia choc full of great ideas, tips and strategies for travelling across the globe with three little ones, whilst staying sane! UGH. On our arrival back in the country, my sanity was hanging by a shred and the last thing I was going to do was to encourage anyone else to embark on the madness we had just returned from! Instead I sought to forget as quickly as possible the ordeal we had just survived. Blogging about it was not on my radar. Until now.
That passport wallet worked like a re-opened time capsule and the memories came back, now that there are a few months between us, and I am comfortably settled in a home that isn't going anywhere soon (and a family that isn't taking to the skies anytime soon) I feel ready to share some of the story with you.
Looking at the big picture of our 5 months living out of suitcases and in other people's homes and 11 flights in total, with our three children (5, 3 and 1 year old), really we did do pretty good all in all. Travelling over there we had our flight broken up by a three day stay in TianJian with Shane's sister and family and we were really welcomed so graciously by the many family and friends who took us in as we travelled around stunningly beautiful Alberta and British Columbia for a month. We also had the bonus of having Shane's parents join us for two weeks of that time which was a big help with the kids and great to have the company and support along the way. Once we were in Ontario we were pretty settled as we had a place to rent and could set up house for a few months.
The really hard part was travelling home. This time we didn't have the luxury of a few nights stay to break up our crossing of the globe. Unless of course you count the 8 hour stop over at Beijing between our two 11hour flights, I don't. The kids were such troopers, but you know, there is only so much anybody can take. The first 11 hour flight went by relatively well, the kids slept for over half the time and were kept somewhat occupied by the activities we had brought and the 'in-flight entertainment'. The inflight entertainment is in itself a major source of frustration. While I was grateful to have it at all, they were rather outdated. We, thankfully, were seated in the bulkhead row and so had the wall in front of us and therefore extra space, which really was awesome. However, this meant we had the videos of hte sort that are stored in the hand rest, these must be at least 10 years old and seem to have lost their ability to hold their position and kept flip flopping and falling over. Frustrating us and the children repeatedly. Also the manual controls to operate the video was difficult to figure out and difficult to use. half the time the buttons not responding, and there seemed to be about 15 selection steps before we got to the desired show, if you make a mistake, you start at the beginning again...ARGH! It took me literally 15 mins sometimes to select a show and get it going. Add to that it was a challenge to find something child suitable... Although we did have time to kill..
On the flight over we didn't have the personal videos and instead we had the communal video playing. which was fine when they showed suitable movies for children. However we had the difficult ordeal of trying to get our kids NOT to watch the violent and supernaturally scary 'Clash of the Titans' which was playing right in front of their faces. I have to say trying to get them to NOT watch something takes managaing children on a flight to a whole new level. That was a painful couple of hours.
11 hours, two meals and NO SNACKS! I don't think the China airline staff are particularly trained to assist families with children. I think they may have been overwhelmed and disapproving of the fact that we had so many. One thing was for sure, they weren't trying to do us any favours.
Hudson was entertaining himself by opening and shutting his window shade. fair enough I reckon, with the limited resources he has to play with and the fact he has woken up from a four hour sleep and it is broad daylight outside. Never mind the fact that it is day time at our place of departure and day time at our place of arrival....The window shades must remian down for another couple of hours!!! What?! Why?! So everyone else can continue to sleep while we go insane??!!! What do you want me to do with them?! Do you have any snacks?! Any toys?! anything!!!?????? HELP ME!!!! I was beginning to unravel at this point and I think I was ready to burst into tears when she told me this. That feeling of someone having utterly no empathy for your situation and offering no assistance, can leave you feeling very... alone.
At this point in the flight we had about 7 hours to go. The kids were done with sleeping. The girls were manageable in their whiny-ness but Hudson... Well, he was another story. He wasn't happy being held, he wasn't happy on the ground sitting. He was screamy/crying half the time, which only increased in intensity as time went on and there seemed little we could do to stop him. The count down began. Shane and I started taking turns, walking him up and down the plane, taking him to the toilet, letting him stand on the change table in there, look in the mirror, put on moisturiser... 'Ok that was 14 mins Shane, your turn'. and so it went on like this...in tiny time increments, at no point did time fly by. WE. FELT. EVERY. MINUTE. In vain I tried a few times to hold him, to rock him to sleep for another nap that would give us some short relief. But this was exhausting and hopeless. We continued to count down. The pain of these hours I would equate with labour, seriously. A few times I would go beyond the curtain to the 1st class area, in which there was NO ONE seated, here I would try to rock Hudson, or at least try and give the other passengers a little respite from his crying. I got some disapproving looks from flight attendants, but I was beyond caring. I can't remember all the little things we attempted to keep him happy, few of them worked. IN between this we were helping the girls with their impossible video players and trying to rustle up food from the non compliant staff. Trying not to take out our frustratoin on each other. AT this I failed at most of the time.
One time earlier in flight, while the girls were both sleeping- Char was actually asleep on shane's lap. I was desperately trying to get Hudson back to sleep, Shane had his eyes closed, peaceful, resting. It infuriated me. I stood, glaring at him. He understood my glares and looked at me, imploring rationality. I know it made no sense. what could he do? He had a sleeping child on his lap! How could he help me? It just seemed so UNFAIR! Oh where goes that selfless love, for me it had vanished.
Eventually the hours and minutes passed by and we were preparing to land. Getting off that plane was like heaven. Oh the relief and the joy! BEing released from that metal prison, stepping out into the sunshine of a Melbourne sunny day...being greeted by dear friends... sigh...bliss...
And so what can I say? It's possible to travel overseas with three small children... but be prepared, I don't believe there is an easy way to do it. In the end its one of those times in life where you just have to bear it... I am glad we did it, and really for the most part the kids did really well, and it was a success overall, but it is a big challenge and one you want to have your eyes wide open for. Try to remember that your husband is not your enemy in this venture, but your team mate and try to be supportive and gracious of one another, and try to laugh at the things that make you want to cry.
As hard as that flight coming home was, I feel we accomplished something great in making this venture to Canada and back. The times we had as a family and the cherished friends we made were more than worth the (short term) pain we experienced in our travels. I am so grateful for the opportunity we had to do this, and grateful for all we learned as we were STRETCHED in this process! For those attempting something similar, my prayers are with you! :) I am glad we did not let the fact we had children stop us from going on this adventure, it did make it more of a challenge but it also made the experience that much richer.
Meanwhile I am utilising my passport wallet, minus the passports and that is fine by me...for now... ;)
Zoey and Esther at school in Canada.
