The “day” had come…the departure day that is. I was so busy getting the house prepared to leave and visiting with everyone, I really hadn’t even processed that we were moving so far away. In fact, we were packing until very late the night before we left and up early to finish getting ready, and we still weren’t ready by the time we had to leave. I didn’t get the last load of laundry dry so ended up stringing it all over the basement. Guess I’ll get to wash it again at some point many months from now! Even when the car arrived to pick us up, I was too exhausted to still even process that we were leaving…

But we were off… I had been dreading this day for months. Not so much because we were leaving, but because I didn’t want to get on a plane that long with a 2 and 3.5 year old. I wasn’t worried about Isla; it was keeping Greyson entertained and quiet that was worrying me so much. We’d been “told off” by a passenger before about keeping kids quiet on the plane, so I always get worried about interfering with others’ peace and quiet…especially because we were in business class and people are paying more. But, we had to get here somehow….

Door to door, the journey was about 33 hours. We flew out of JFK airport in NYC, so we had about a two hour drive to get there. I thought I’d maybe take a little nap on the way, but had too many things racing through my head that I need to finalize- canceling cable, canceling the trash service, making sure the property manager had all the information needed, etc. Plus I was hoping that I had enough snacks, toys, diapers, change of clothing, etc for this long trek.

With the kids strapped to me (literally one my back and one to my waist), Brent was in charge of lugging the luggage at the airport. We ended up having several hours in the lounge before departing on our first flight, so the kids were entertained in the kids’ room.  Hopefully burning off some energy!

At 4:30p, we flew from JFK to LA which was about 6 hours. Okay, let’s see how this goes…..

It was about 10:30p eastern when we landed, so the kids had fallen asleep and didn’t want to wake. Greyson cried because he wanted to go “nite nite” more. We intentionally scheduled a layover so they’d have to wake up and hopefully sleep longer on the next plane. {That sort of worked out} It was back to the lounge, and they got their YouTube fix before getting on the plane for the longest leg of the journey.

Our flight from LA to Melbourne was to leave at 1:30am eastern. We boarded, but sat on the plane for an hour before taking off. This didn’t work too well for Greyson. He was beyond tired and didn’t like being strapped into the seat. I finally left him out since we weren’t departing yet, but then when I tried to get him strapped back in, he started kicking and screaming. He screamed for about 20 minutes. {Maybe it was two, but it felt like an eternity.} Other passengers weren’t sleeping so I knew it what disturbing me the most.  I was really hoping that this wasn’t how the flight was going to go. I knew if I could just get him to sleep, he’d be fine. With lots of shushing and hair stroking, he finally let me put the pillows and blankets around him, and he feel asleep before takeoff, then stayed asleep for several hours. Isla feel asleep pretty quickly too.

The challenge became when they woke up, everyone else on the plane was sleeping. Their little internal clocks don’t care that we were in another timezone! So, Brent and I spent about the next five hours trying to entertain them quietly. With Greyson’s attention span being about 10 minutes on one activity, it was a bit exhausting. It would have been nice for him to sit and watch a movie, but he also refused to wear his headphones, and since you can’t have the volume on, it made things pretty boring for him. Isla had no problems!

The flight from LA to Melbourne was around 15 hours and with about 9 hours to go, Greyson proclaims, “I don’t like this airplane”. No kidding, Greyson! Me, either! Unfortunately, I was counting down the hours from that point…

The kids did take another nap and continued to play. I did have to break out the secret new toys earlier than expected- the Peppa Pig, family and friends figures. Brent looked at me and said, “Great, what’s left now?!”

Thankfully by this point, the passengers were waking up and the kids could play freely and loudly so the last few hours were fine. One thing I did learn is to dress the kids in brighter colors. Greyson was in all navy blue, and when he said, “I run fast” and started running back the dark airplane aisle behind a curtain, you know you’ve made a mistake when you can hardly see him.

The kids were eager to get off the plane, but we still were no where near done with the journey. Once getting through customs and collecting our bags, we still had about an hour drive to the house. We had a driver pick us up, so that was really helpful because of all of the luggage. The kids were in such a good mood that they sang the entire way to the house. Isla couldn’t wait to see the “new house”. All I could think of was how badly I wanted to take a shower and sleep.

Overall, the kids did amazing. Far better than I expected, but then again, I was expecting the worst! I just may get back on a plane sometime soon…and hopefully not worry as much this time.

Here we are door to door…. and I certainly agree with what Greyson yelled when the plane landed, “Cool, we did it! We did it!”