Wednesday, March 5, 2014

The boy and the aeroplane

Jaden loves car. "Car" is his favourite word. Before long, he learned to pronounce 'aeroplane', but he has never successfully say the word perfectly. No matter how many times I taught him, "air plane" is his best effort to pronounce the word.

Early January this year, we (three of us and my mum) boarded on Air Asia X, took a 7-hour night flight and landed at Adelaide, Australia. As a first time flyer, Jaden's performance was great. He loves aeroplane and couldn't wait to see the real big bird. The over excited boy did not sleep until past midnight. We have purchased the front row hot seats for the convenience of putting him in the bassinet. We were lucky that as the result of just been discharged from the hospital barely 3 weeks before the trip, Jaden was at his lowest weight record, 10.3 kg. This qualified him to stay below the maximum capacity of the bassinet, which is 11kg.

Looks like the bassinet is a bit too short for my baby.

The only challenge we faced was whenever there was turbulence, we were instructed by the air stewardess to carry the sleeping baby and put him to sit with us. This woke up the sleeping baby every time and it was hard to comfort the sleepy grumpy boy. I prayed so hard for not to have turbulence but still couldn't avoid to disturb him 3-4 times throughout the journey.

Adelaide is a good place for toddlers. Low population, fresh air, plenty of well-kept parks, stroller friendly pedestrian streets, clean and convenient baby rooms in most of the public premise. The barely 2 -year-old Jaden did not really know how to appreciate the excitement of theme park or zoo. What attracted him the most was the spacious greens that allows him to roam freely.  Back to the basic, freedom is mankind's ultimate need. Expensive toys and luxury materials mean nothing to a toddler. Sadly, we do not have much luxury to enjoy this basic needs in the big cities of Malaysia. Security was the biggest concern of most parents when bringing kids for outdoor activities. In addition, the heat and the haze condition lately, impose further limitations to most parents here.

Having some fun at the zoo.


He loves borderless greens

Jaden and his favourite toy car

Dipping his hand in the chilly fountain


7 happy days passed in the blink of eyes. The return flight was a day flight, Jaden only slept for 2 hours for the whole 7.5 hours journey. The rest of the time, he was busy playing with other toddlers and passengers in the plane.
Bye bye, drink more water while flying to prevent dehydration.

3 weeks after returning from Adelaide, we boarded on Malindo Air to fly to Penang for Chinese New Year reunion. Again, another smooth journey for Jaden.

With these successful flying experience, we are ready to fly further and higher in the future!