The joy of flying with little ones

Not a problem on the face of it as we could get there in little over an hour thanks to the wonder of modern aircraft.

But what took a little more thought was keeping the luggage and general Ben-related paraphernalia to a minimum.

That meant no cot, no bedding, no unnecessary favourite cups, plates and food and he was limited to only the toys he could fit in his Iggle Piggle backpack.

The boy has got used to having his home comforts around, so having to play with the same three cars and a tractor for the duration of check-in and the flight was a bit of a shock to the system.

Now he is two, the little monkey also has to have his own seat. Despite my protestations that he was small enough to fit in my hand luggage, his dad pointed out this breached various human rights legislation so and I relented and paid up.

This new-found independence did mean Ben thought he could get up and down whenever he wanted, paying no regard whatsoever to the ‘fasten your seatbelt’ sign or the air steward’s warnings. As I pinned him into his chair for take off, the catterwalling began and I felt sure I could actually hear the eyes rolling back into the heads of the unfortunate people sitting around us.

A Thomas the Tank Engine magazine later and peace was restored, which was when Ben turned his adorable dial up to ‘max’. Flirting with the stewardesses, playing ‘boo’ with the lady opposite, oh how fickle his audience was as not ten minutes ago they were wishing for an ejector seat for the snotty, red-faced toddler.

The rest of the flight was incident- free and we landed and went on our merry way.

However, the issue of sitting in a chair reared its ugly head again during the church service, which meant Ben and I spent the entire service in a freezing alcove as he struggled to understand why it was he couldn’t rugby tackle the bridesmaids as they made their way up the aisle.

Never was a glass of fizz so eagerly anticipated or so quickly sunk.