Baby2go

We're back. Flying with a small person in tow is such a different experience. Firstly there is that collective shudder from everyone on the aircraft when they see you come down the aisle with a perky toddler in your arms. OH NOOOOOO! Please don't sit next to ME! Then once the flight is underway and it becomes obvious that your child is not the antichrist, the population divides rapidly into two camps. There is the Have/Like children faction, who smile indulgently, want to spirit your offspring away in their arms (H has very much got past the stage of placidly being handed round the flight crew and now registers Stranger Danger Alert at high decibels whenever there is an attempt to grab him, and who can blame him really?).

Then there are the "I am so not interested in the Fruit of Your Loins" faction, who stare fixedly ahead even when the aforementioned small person is cooing sweetly and putting his head on one side in serious flirt-with-me-I'm-cute mode trying to attract their attention. And I have to sympathise with this group, as I was myself until recently a stalwart of their ranks, and used to find children of all varieties either invisible or a source of great irritation. And so I am turning into the kind of parent who goes to extreme lengths to ensure that their child is as quiet and unobtrusive as humanly possible when in a public place. Which is probably deeply wrong, and will scar him for life.

The good news for us was that all flights on this trip were fairly uneventful with minimal or no screaming, that is, if you don't count me dropping H on his head in the transit lounge in Miri. He sort-of lurched forward off a seat and bounced head first off the concrete floor, prompting maximum screaming at that point and a good deal of parental agonising. D thought we should abort the trip and rush him to hospital. We dithered until H stopped crying, and I had remembered scraps of Brownie Guide first aid advice... "Uh, his eyes are still going in the same direction and he hasn't lost consciousness so let's just wing it"...

The next day, I was amazed to see he didn't even have a bruise on his head. He's tough, my son. Though I am not going to let him sit on a chair ever again for the rest of his life.

Otherwise the time away was not so much a holiday as an exercise in chaperoning a boy band star. He was mobbed everywhere we went by adoring locals who couldn't hold back from groping his blonde locks. "Ahhhh - so cute!!" was the refrain that echoed in our ears from start to finish. It was a great way in to get talking to loads of people and everyone was so kind and helpful I wondered why Lonely Planet don't suggest you breed before you go anywhere. For the most part, H just lapped up all the extra attention. He's down to earth rather brutally now that we are home. Blonde babies are two-a-penny in Australia, so the mass crowd adulation has abruptly stopped, and H looks a little puzzled that he's been relegated to ex-stardom at only 15 months old. We can only expect that rebound cocaine addiction and general bad behaviour will ensue, at least until he stages a comeback tour in Italy next summer.