We spent the morning with Auntie Carolyn and Baby Finn at The Beachhouse in Adelaide. We only had 1.5 hours and $66 in gift certificates to spend so that didn't leave any time to take pictures to share. Just to give you an idea of what The Beach House is...here's a photo off of their website.
The kids got to ride the carousal (pictured above), the train, several small coin operated ride-on's and lots of arcade games. They really enjoyed themselves and had such a great time. Emmy's favorites were the games and Lilah loved the Bob the Builder Truck that barely moved when you paid $2 for it to rock back and fourth. The idea was to wear them out before our flights that way they'd have some lunch and be ready for a nap for our 1pm departure. Of course things never go as you plan and I certainly didn't get the experience I was hopping for!
We said our goodbye's at the Airport to our family and friends and headed down the ramp to board our plane. Sorry no pictures again.... I had my hands full, but it's a shame because the girls and I were dressed super cute! I did a bit of a retro throw back to flying in the 50-60's in a retro shaped dress with matching hand bag *smiles* Back to the story.... Immediately I had trouble handling my carry on, the kids carry on and holding Lilah. Lucky a nice gentleman stepped up to help with our bags. The girls were excited and happy to be on the plane. I had really talked it up for weeks and they really wanted to see what all the fuse was about. Emmy kept herself busy with her coloring book, stickers, watching out the window, and snacks while Lilah needed constant entertainment. She didn't have too much interest in any of the goodies I packed for her and acted like a bucket of worms the entire time. She refused to sit in her seat and would cry and scream if I tried to make her. When it came time to start the descent and seat belts needed to be buckled she really went crazy. Screaming and trying to throw herself on the floor. I had to do my best to force her to at least sit on my lap for landing. It was easy to tell at some points her ears where bothering her, but her tantrum started long before the actual descent so the pain wasn't the sole cause of such a melt down. I've never had so many people looking at me on a plane before haha, but I didn't feel bad. The flight was under 2 hours and all I kept thinking was what I wanted to say to all of the onlookers...it would go something like this
"oohh you think this is bad? Just be thankful you'll not be trapped 30,000 feet in the air for 16 hours straight when we travel to the states in 8 weeks." Just as we landed she passed out from exhaustion, and it was the absolute worst time for her to sleep. I had to manage both of our roller carts again while carrying her and keeping Emmy close while we met up with Kim in Brisbane then we'd all fly together to Proserpine. He was suppose to meet me at our gate and if he wasn't there then we'd met at Hungry Jack's (Burger King). I had 3 lovely ladies that seen what happened on the plane and they offered to help with my bags and it was just a blessing! We did our quick look around the gate and Hungry Jack's and couldn't find Kim. We then all headed to baggage claim because our bags couldn't be checked through because we had to switch airlines for our connecting flight. Completely ridiculous, I know!! As we came down the escalator there stood Kim waiting at the bottom with both of our new carseats in their HUGE boxes. He was so relieved that I come to baggage claim instead of hanging around waiting for him at the restaurant. He said security wouldn't let him come up with such large boxes but also wouldn't watch them.
We had a descent amount of time to recheck in and get rid of as many bags as possible, go through security again and have our bags dug through. We found our departing gate and waited around 30 min's. The girls spent their time by taking turns going to the bath room. It never fails...I don't care where we are but one of them will have to do a #2 with no shame! This time Emmy demanded privacy and I couldn't be in the stall with her so I went and stood by the sinks hahaha. Even though it was a pain in the butt to take them to the toilets every hour my girls didn't use their pull up's once on the entire trip lasting from 6am-10pm. Whenever they do things that make me proud instead of only telling them how proud I am I will ask them if they feel proud of themselves and try to foster the inner drive for self pride over please others. They were VERY proud of themselves that night! Sorry....I'm drifting off topic again...
With the extra set of parental hands I was no longer out numbered and really hoped that this second flight would be better. Nope, worse!! Lilah constantly wiggled, got up, got down, climbed up her dad, jumped over to me, and then started the process over again. Towards the end of the flight she was getting tired and irritated and started to whine and cry. Emmy had started the flight out doing some coloring and then quickly lost steam and fell asleep. She didn't look comfortable so I scooped her up and really enjoyed holding a peacefully sleeping QUIET child haha. Pretty soon it was time to prepare for landing and it was the same thing all over again except this time she added clawing, scratching, hitting, and kicking me or the seat in front of us. After several minutes of fighting her I just let her go and she slid down to the floor and continued to throw her fit. At least when she was on the floor she couldn't kick the chair in front of us or claw me. After another 5 minutes with no let up in the screaming they came around to say that it was definitely time for her to be in a seat-belt. She watched as I struggled to force her into her seat and buckle the belt but Lilah was arching her back so much that I couldn't get her into the sitting position. The lady came back with one of the baby seat-belts that hook into the mothers seat-belt and we thought that might work better. I put Lilah onto my lap and it took two grown women to get the seat belt on her. She continued to claw, hit, and kick. It took all of my strength to simultaneously hold her hands from clawing and keeping her legs from kicking. Eventually she stopped trying to attack me and focused on getting the belt off. Don't forget she was still SCREAMING while all of this was happening. In a desperate attempt to quite her I took off her seat-belt and finally she was exhausted enough that she turned around and hugged me while passing out. Again...completely asleep at landing. This is really turning into a bad pattern!
The kids and I waited outside the airport for Daddy to collect our bags, load up the car, and install the new car-seats. An hour later we were ready to head out. Since none of our furniture or belongings had reached the new house yet we thought it would be better on the kids if we stayed at a hotel and at least we'd have more than 1 bed and it wouldn't be an empty space. I think we all slept really good that night!
I know this is a bit of a longer post than I usually do, but I really wanted all of you to feel my pain! hahha Also I wanted this experience in Lilah's life to be well documented so she can read it someday. I can only hope she'll have a child as "lively" as herself :) As for the upcoming trip to the States...I'm not as worried as you'd think I'd be. Whatever will be will be, so I'll just have to be prepared as possible. Complete sedation will obviously be requried and some good old fashioned allergy medicine should do the trick. I'll also have several pairs of standard ear plugs for myself and for the people around us. I may not be able to keep her from crying, but at least I can offer some reduction in volume!
I'll give these a try as well!
Kids Earplane Ear Plugs for Airplane Travel. My sister has alot of ear troubles and she swears by them, so hopefully Lilah will allow me to put them in and leave them in for take off and landing! Cross your fingers! xo
