Are we there yet?

Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Sydney, Australia
The Departure Date finally arrived and the boys were beside themselves with excitement as we headed for the airport. Greg wisely suggested that we overnight near the airport for a more civilised early morning morning sendoff. Definitely the way to go, punctuality not being one of my strong points....(no, really, it's true... )
So we did it, got through all the security checks and took our seats aboard JAL flight 772 from Sydney to Tokyo.
Now, just as I speak (or type), I realise that our initials together... Jenny - Angus - Lewis...spell JAL!! That really must mean something! Hmmmm - wonder what I'll do with that?
On our flight there were individual video screens for each passenger as part of the service called JAL Entertainment Network  They call it JEN for short (do we sense a recurring theme here or what!?) and you would think it would make life with kids on a long flight a lot easier. It does in some ways, as it certainly provides a variety of diversions, but it creates a whole new set of parental challenges such as:
  • Leaning across seats at awkward angles to untangle remote control cords from headphone cords
  • Explaining why the games can be paused for a toilet visit but the movies cannot
  • Dealing with refusal to visit toilet despite obvious danger of imminent explosion because movie cannot be paused  
  • Having to interrupt own (non-pausable) movie viewing and read onscreen instructions for computer game in order to provide technical support to frustrated 5 year old gamer
. ..and now for the piece de resistance, story of my life, 'why does this random stuff always happen to me?' moment:
  • Having to MOVE SEATS because the aforementioned gamer's remote control stopped working and his screen display froze in the middle of trying to exit out of a game. 
  • Yep. We did that.
Having been moved to the front row of economy because of his frozen JEN screen, Lewis promptly lost interest in games and cartoons, discovering there was more fun to be had by befriending the JAL cabin crew. He visited the crew station numerous times to ask if he could "help them". I'm not sure what assistance he imagined himself providing, but his persistence paid off and he was eventually asked to deliver a packet of rice crackers to someone at the back of the plane. On the walk back from his successful assignment he was so busy looking around that he tripped over and hurt himself. As I comforted my poor darling one of the stewardesses came and fussed over him, offering to take him to see what was at the top of the stairs if he promised to stop crying. The tears evaporated and Lewis was escorted upstairs to check out First Class.
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