What a Trip......

This was Yatish and my first international flight, even though we had travelled domestic quite a bit. Since my brother had warned us of the snowy winter which awaited us, we got ourselves some warm clothes and thermals and whatever we thought appropriate. As you know having prams or strollers for children is not very common in India and since Yatish was just 2 and half years and was quite tiny, we had just got him a feeding chair and also there was little choice in prams and strollers which would suit Yatish. So we decided to take the feeding chair along with us. We had a stopover at Frankfurt and the flight was of 21 hours duration.

Somebody suggested that I give Yatish, Phenergan, which is a mild sedative when on flight, so he would sleep during most of the travel. It was a bad idea and it just did not seem to work with Yatish, he was not only awake during most of the flight but created such a ruckus, that people around us promptly changed their seats. I regretted having travelled alone. In the flight I had asked for infant food for Yatish, which means only milk. The flight attendant took the bottle from me after asking me numerous questions about the temperature, consistency etc. and filled it up and got it of course, without sugar in it. Now my son is used to drinking milk with sugar as any typical Indian kid and he just refused to drink it. So I asked the flight attendant if she could put some sugar in the milk and lo, the heavily accented German lady gave me a lesson in oral hygiene and how adding sugar in milk is a bad for teeth and gums. But with a hungry and screaming baby, it is last thing you want to listen to, anyways I listened to her patiently and the moment she left to attend other passengers, I quickly went into the pantry, grabbed a handful of sugar sachets and saved myself from her lecture once for all.....


For those of you who want to take a disabled person on flight this site is useful to check provisions provided by different airlines.

http://specialchildren.about.com/od/inthecommunity/qt/airlineinfo.htm

The stopover at Frankfurt was about three hours. Had enough time to change and freshen up. There was this old Indian couple visiting their son at Chicago, who were a great help. Now I also regretted having not got a pram as I could not put Yatish down. Once we reached Logan International airport, my sister-in-law was there to pick us up. It was quite chilly and windy. We had thought that since I was travelling alone, I should carry this single huge 40 kg capacity bag, which turned out to be a bad decision, since it not only did not survive the long flight and handling, it was pretty unwieldy manoeuvring it in the airport. It is always better to carry two bags. Now we were supposed to meet my brother midway, we took a bus from the airport and finally reached home.

Now looking back, I am myself astonished as to how I could venture with a small kid, with multiple challenges and no help whatsoever, without even thinking about missing the flight or any other such mishaps. Maybe the fierce urge to find answers overshadowed the fear of risk involved in taking such a kid on a long flight. Anyway we both made it without any incidents.