Flying as a parent by a nervous flyer

             
I hate flying. Ever since I was little the very thought of strapping myself into a seat in a long tube with hundreds of other people for long periods of time, before getting to my destination, has always been my idea of hell. At 16 I stupidly watched teen horror flick ‘Final Destination’ just before jet setting to Dubai with my sister and cousin sitting either side winding me up that I too would see my fate on the aeroplane. Yes, they were horrible, yet still wind me up about it to this day. 

Whilst I was excited for my holiday, and woke a full 2 hours before my alarm went off to leave for the airport, my nerves slowly started kicking into gear as we drove closer and closer to Gatwick. Sam had been excitedly counting down the days, hours, minutes and seconds, until he put down his tools, packed the final bits to his suitcase and head to a warmer more relaxed Spain for a whole week. For me, sitting in my brother-in-laws car, Emily sleeping soundly in the car seat next to me, whilst Sam and Tim chat in the front, I felt my tummy do a million cartwheels and I feared at moments I would actually throw up. I’ll admit, I’m not as bad as some flyers who spend weeks dreading their upcoming flight, frantically trying to find ways to avoid boarding the plane,  before settling on Valium to get them where they need to go, but I do generally build up my nerves on the day, a few hours before you’re expected to be at the airport. I had hoped that havin Emily would mean my nerves would be sidestepped to concentrate on her, but whilst she’s snoozed, I still felt extremely nauseous. Before we left I peed like five times, drank a cuppa and downed some water and the night before we had a takeaway, which I spent a large amount of time worrying would come up, or out! 

Emily was brilliant. So brilliant, she fell asleep and slept 30 minutes into our flight. Whilst Sam had his eyes closed next to me, Emily sleeping peacefully on my lap, I felt sick as the plane took off. But once in the air, tuberlence calmed down, Sam and I took it in turns eating our breakfast and holding Emily. She did get fidgety on occasions, the small space and legroom would annoy anyone, but the young lady next to us, a trainee teacher helped assured Emily’s jitters. Emily even slept at touch down! 

Overall the flight wasn’t as bad as I thought, but that’s because of Emily. She distracted my attention which is what I needed. I didn’t worry about myself as much, the fear of the whole flight was put to one side whilst Emily played with brochures, tried to climb me looking for a way out, played peek-a-boo with the couple behind me and took an interest in Molly, from London next to me. So, even with all my fears and speculations, Emily helped eased those nerves. Hopefully our flight home will be just as simple!