Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Sleep Away

Psyched up for the 18 hour flight, I structured activity for Shane on the plane:

a) Nap
b) Walk around the aisle
c) Watch one movie
d) Share a pack of chips
e) Draw
f) Eat grapes
g) Toilet break

8 hours in the flight, I was getting quite tired. Only 10 hours more....what shall we do?

Then I saw her.

She was slumped on her chair. She had a baby asleep in the bassinet in front of her. In the near aisle, there were three other children aged 3, 5 and 7 who were squirming around and kicking each other.

Shane stopped. He wanted to play with them.

"No Shane...their mommy is sleeping"

The 5 year old boy started jumping on the airline seat. Shane joined in. The 3 year old girl woke up and kicked her brother.

"You're kicking me. Stoppit!"

"Shut up!"

The 3 and 5 year old started throwing muffin pieces at each other.

The 7 year old looked on with disinterest. She was colouring.

All this time she remained asleep, dead to everything that was happening around her. Even if she was awake, her kids would still fidget and fight.

So why bother, just sleep.

I steered Shane back to our seats and seatbelted him tightly. Propping up my neck pillow, I knew then how I would survive this trip. If that mom of four could do it, so can I - closing my eyes, I fell asleep.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home