Trapped with abusive parent in airplane for five hours!Alright, it's maybe not the worst situation in the world, but we just got back from two weeks in Hawaii on holiday and I experienced a distressing situation on the five hour flight back from the Big Island to San Francisco (where we overnighted): an abusive parent and her child in my row of the plane.
As is common with airlines, we booked months in advance but couldn't get our five seats together, so we had three seats in one row, one seat immediately ahead of it, and one seat two rows ahead of that. Not so good when we're traveling with the kids, needless to say, but since K-'s now two, we have to buy her a seat too.
We decided that we'd arrange it so that Linda and all three kids were squished into the three-seat row (with the baby on her lap to hopefully sleep) and I'd be in the row immediately ahead.
But when we were all trying to settle into our seats, I was joined by a heavyset native Hawaiian woman and her five year old (I'm guessing) daughter. Her daughter promptly stood on the chair to look over and meet our kids and the Mom...
read more: The joys of coming homeIt's so nice to go to the islands for a few days, but I'm always happy to come home again as well. There is just something so comforting in pottering or, as I like to call it, faffing. Moving our things from here to there, filling the fridge full of food, playing the music you like, even stupid things like sorting out washing has something comforting about it (am I becoming a Desperate Housewife?) Anyway, you just can't do those things in a hotel room. I guess coming home is part of the joys of traveling. It's hard to appreciate what you've got until you haven't got it anymore, even if this 'lack of' is self-imposed and only for a few days.
My family and I, we're all a bunch of gypsies, yet we all love our homes! We're incredibly homely people yet if we were to lose all our belongings tomorrow, we'd simply brush ourselves off and create new homes all over again.
I know for a fact that I don't get too attached to 'stuff' as a few years ago there was a fire threat to our home. A huge tree next to the Jungle Dome was on fire and ambers were floating onto the wood shingled roof of our wooden Dome. Whilst a group of men climbed on to the roof with buckets and hoses, I was warned to take all valuables out of the house, just in case. I wandered around the house in a daze. What was actually of value to us? I just couldn't answer that question, so I simply grabbed our laptop, some paperwork, creditcards, photographs, a few old MTV videos and some football trophees. That was it! All our 'valuables' fitted into two bags. I couldn't think of anything else to take.
The moment I realized how unimportant all our 'things' were to me, I felt totally liberated. Eventhough everybody still ran up and down the stairs with buckets and the whole situation should have been quite stressful for me, I walked around with a huge grin on my face. I remember that, as Andy hugged me, I thought 'This is all that matters. If the house burns down...so be it. As long as we've got eachother and our animals are safe (this was before our children were born)...all is okay'.
So anyway, isn't it strange that our homes are so comforting to us because we have all our stuff there, yet all this stuff is so unimportant at the same time?
It's a wonderful paradox to me. So, home sweet home.
And enjoy yours, where ever it may be!
read more: You know you're a mum when...- You sneak out of bed at 5.30 in the morning, just to be able to have a cup of coffee in silence
- You haven't been able to have dinner at the same time as your husband for weeks (a crying baby has had you eating in shifts)
- You pick up things with your toes as your hands are always taken up by carrying children
- You cut your finger and have to wear a 'Dora the explorer' bandaid, which is all you have in the house
- The theme tune to 'SpongeBob Squarepants' is stuck in a loop inside your head (Wo lives in a pineapple under the sea? SpongeBob Squarepants!)
- You lie awake at night wondering how on earth you're going to be able to pack sensibly for an upcoming trip (is it possible to bring the baby swing, car seat and the stroller? Will we be exceeding the luggage allowance on the flight? And how many presents and treats do we need to keep Lucas entertained for the duration of the trip?)
- You start to gravitate towards blogs written by other mums. Their words resonate with you like nothing else can
- And you could totally relate to Felicity Huffman's character Lynette in 'Desperate housewives' when she started to take her childrens' ADD medication just to keep up with her pace of life
Yep, being a mum is a crazy thing. It's wonderful and annoying. A blessing and a curse. You wouldn't change it for the world, yet you fantasize about life without children. You are jealous of your former self, of how all she had to think about was herself & at the same time you cringe at how selfish she really was. Being a mum is the ultimate paradox, a black hole of love, that sucks you in and forces you to lose yourself, yet helps you to find your truer self, there where you lost you (does this still make any sense?)
Anyhow, some of the parenting websites and blogs that I have come across and liked:
- Five minutes for mom. They were even so nice to add my blog to their site and to interview me as well
- Parent center. They send me weekly updates on baby's developments. It tells us what we can expect at each stage, which is great as we don't have many other babies around us to measure Aidan's development against
- The mommy blog. Made me laugh out loud. Especially the part about traveling with young children (she deals with the same pre-travel anxiety as me)
- Happiness is a good nap. Sweet personal blog by a single mother of two
- Natural parenting. All about attachment parenting
- Dr. Sears website. His 'Pregnancy' book & 'The Baby' book are my bibles
- Think twice. Are you debating whether or not to vaccinate? Make sure you read this website.
And finally, you know you're a mum when it takes you at least 10 attempts to write a short blog like this....
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