I will never fly long haul with a toddler and baby in tow ever again.

Oh Hai! We’re here to fool you into thinking we’re great travel mates!

Look at the above picture. Butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths would it?

Obviously I’m the biggest champion of my two munchkins. They are ace. One of them is a legendary sleeper and while the other may wake me up three times a night and has aged me by a decade in the last five months he’s completely charming and becoming a total Mummy’s boy.

Don’t worry, I’m not about to turn this into a mummy blog – there are plenty of them out there and I could never fit in with those amazing yummy mummies who managed to lose the bulge and still indulge within a week of giving birth. I somehow manage to keep my kids clean/fed and one of them’s an excellent talker and seems to have some common sense in her so far but that’s about as far as I’ve got. They regularly wear odd socks and BLC very rarely gets her hair brushed and will never be like one of those model children from Pinterest. But they’re my bonkers little minions and I love them to bits.

I will never ever submit any of us to a long-haul flight while they are little ever again.

There is a special place in hell for us mums who could afford to pay a bit more attention to being slightly more “yummy mummy” (bleurggggh!) and that is in a tin can that somehow moves through the air, dropping you off 12 hours later.

The vessel of hell that’s there for us parents who like to drag their kids to the other side of the world…

Thank heavens that hell includes a well stocked bar with unlimited alcohol these days (Mr Man’s words!). I’m not saying this just for the parents involved. I’m saying this for most people within a few rows of us. I apologised to you then and I apologise to you again now. I am so feckin sorry. I used to be that person who was horrified that people would travel with their young children and blamed the parents for their children’s poor behaviour, but let me tell you world, those parents have very little control over the demons that their cute little cherubs will turn into when confined to a seat for hours up on hours on end.

Two long haul flights in five days was a silly idea. Why didn’t we just fork out £16,000 per person and take a three month cruise to get back to New Zealand? At least then they would have had room to run around. Instead we were confined to three seats and a bassinet between four of us. Next time we head to the UK we could probably do it on foot – my two year old has enough energy in her that she’d probably embrace the challenge.

I followed everyone’s advice on making flights like this work. I even printed out the amazing Meg-Made’s guide to travelling with kids of all ages. But Meg and her daughter are angelic. I should have known months ago that BLC was never going to comply with my new found tips for on-board behaviour management. All she wanted to do was pull my head phones in and out of their plug many many times over and watch Raa Raa the Noisy Lion at full blast on the iPad, but with the headphones out of that. Meg – I’m not discounting your advice, you are a star and I just want to be you… I would also like Maddy to meet BLC and show her how its done.

None of us were amused for any of these flights.

I naively thought that by booking night flights both our children would sleep soundly and happily and that Mr Man and I would at least get six or seven hours of solid shut eye in ourselves! I didn’t prepare for our flight out of Manchester to be so badly delayed (sat on a plane for 2.5 hours) that neither kid would get a stretch of their legs at Heathrow and we’d hurriedly be the last four people to arrive on that next plane… meaning an overtired but under-worked BLC would have the biggest/only major toddler meltdown she’s ever had in public, and that it would happen several times throughout the 12 hour flight.

I also naively thought that by following everyone’s advice on clearing kids ears on the pressure changes that we’d be cry free from Mr Man Jr. Not so. Somehow his ears went horrid and he cried for large chunks of the flights until he eventually just went to sleep.

Then there’s meal times on a plane with a two year old…

YUCK.

Don’t under estimate just how many wipes one needs on one of these flights. For some reason airlines think its great to serve kids a tomato based pasta on every single flight. This greasy gunk goes EVERYWHERE except their mouths. As does anything egg-based. To the beautiful stewardess who thought giving BLC a Cookie Time was a well meant lovely idea, I’m sure it was in your head, and it momentarily was in mine, but you then got to hear her sugar high followed by immense sugar crash – again, I am sorry. Also lovely stewardess, thank you for that third gin you brought me and kindly said “I understand you need this, I’ve put extra in it for you” wink wink nudge nudge.

After two massive long haul plus two short haul flights, I am prepared for my family to not fly further than Fiji for many years, perhaps even until they want to go backpacking around India and find themselves then run out of cash and need to borrow from the Bank of Mum and Dad. It was agony. I drank more gin on both sets of flights than I ever would on a night out, and then there was the coffee that has to match the jet lag at the other end, because one does not sleep when on a flight with a toddler and a baby nor for at least several days when one lands.

Oh coffee… you beautiful beautiful thing!

And that my friends, is a travel experience I will never do again.

Thankfully we are now in the world’s coolest little capital and there are plenty of play grounds and kid friendly coffee shops to keep us going for many years to come.

Yep, that’s my brood!

This post was part of this month’s travel link up with Kelly, Emma, Rebecca and Shikha. I’ve been enjoying everyone else’s rather brilliant stories so far.

P.S. Air New Zealand, my apologies if you’re offended in any of this, your staff were actually amazing.