One of the oddest things about having kids is the odd looks you get when you try to go anywhere with them by yourself. Take our Mother’s Day trip to Leeds Castle the other week. People actually commiserated with me being out alone with three children. Which seemed a bit rich given the date.
What should I have done instead? Stay home getting cabin fever in a rapidly-too-small house in a bit of London that works if you want a (long) walk into town or to the Tate Modern but is nowhere near a decent park? No thanks. Not that they *need* walking like dogs; I’ve always hated the way that charge gets lobbed at children, especially boys. It’s me who climbs the walls.
Plus, I like taking them places. Most of the time. So the prospect of a week on my own with them during the holidays left me with no choice but upping the ante. Especially now I don’t have to be anywhere else, like at work. Which is how I ended up on an early Sunday morning flight to Asturias, our clothes for the next three days wedged into a single wheel-on bag, with the wrong hands-to-child ratio for comfort.
It was all going so well until that security queue. And to be fair, I can’t blame the 18 month old for being peeved at being parted from her hand-me-down ladybird rucksack. How was she to know it would ever emerge from the hungry mouth of the X-ray scanner? She’s not prone to meltdowns but her reaction was fairly spectacular. Even I felt a bit sorry for myself, for about five minutes. But, in retrospect, that was mainly because I’d left enough time to buy a couple of kids’ magazines (yes to the Beano, because it alone lacks a stupid plastic toy) but not enough to get a coffee. Fool! And she cheered up once she spotted all the planes out of the window as we waited to board.
And if taking three kids aged 7, 4, and 1 on an easyJet flight on my own sounds nuts, well, at least she was still young enough to sit on my lap, leaving a side free for each boy. In any case, it wasn’t the flight out that was bothering me but the thought of our 21.25 return home three days later. Or specifically, how I’d manage to get the two littlest ones off the plane and through security at what would be the equivalent of 23.30 Spanish time without a buggy to help because we live in the UK not Scandinavia.
For now, though, I had the iPad. And the Huawei, and a lovely Spanish lady across the aisle with her own two small children, who within minutes of clocking my crazy travel plans had handed me her business card and at least three ways of contacting her in case of any Asturian emergencies. Talk about solidaridad!
suzeletter 