Little adventures in flight
Sometimes it’s hard to pin down what life with Jasper is
really all about. Are situations about us, or him?
For example, I think this column is about my experiences as a father and husband; many of the people who read it consider it a column about the little man himself.
In hindsight, I can’t remember whether Carolina and I were nervous about flying to England for Christmas with JD because it might be uncomfortable for him, or for us. Certainly we were worried about cabin pressure giving him earache. (A bottle served at takeoff took care of that.)
As usual, Jasper took everything in his stride and it was our sanity we should have been concerned for.
Despite arriving more than three hours before the departure time, all the bulkhead seats were booked. We didn’t even get a centre aisle seat. I feel sorry for the guy on the aisle next to us who had to keep getting up every time we, or Jasper, needed to visit the loo.
To those of you who have never flown with infants, the bulkhead seats might seem barely significant, a place in economy class to grab extra legroom. To a parent, they are vital to comfort and convenience. Bulkheads are fitted with fold-down tables which can have a cot strapped to them. The child can then be secured in comfort, giving you room to eat, read or sleep.
We knew this because we watched in envy as the other families were treated to this service, while we struggled with Jasper in our laps. He barely slept, snatching the odd hour here or there. Consequently, every one of us was jetlagged on our arrival in the UK.
How to sum up Jasper’s first Christmas? It was a wonderful time for many reasons. Perhaps the best of them were the reactions of people who met him for the first time: his uncle David, his great-uncle Chris (my “Unk”, therefore Jasper’s “Gunk”), his second cousins Zoe and Maxine, our friends. JD received a Santa outfit that really wowed the ladies.
Coming home (to our building site of a house) was hard, because it’s going to be ages before most of those people see him again. But I’m delighted that we made the trip. And we have never appreciated a bulkhead seat so much as we did on the way back. Sleep well.
