Normal service was interrupted by the lack of an internet connection when we arrived at Grandma's. It wasn't that I didn't try, more like I had no clue how to set it up and got bored so wrote my thoughts in Word, only to find that I couldn't post them later because the internet really wasn't working! So here's my Sunday morning rambling.
2:30 is an inhuman time in the morning to get up. But that’s what time we were up yesterday. We were expecting TB to have some serious issues with being woken up in the middle of the night, and as such, be a complete monster for the entire trip, but instead he happily got up, helped to take his car seat down to the car, and remained in a good mood. We managed to leave the house and get to Heathrow without any trouble (or traffic) and plenty of time to check our bags in. You would think it would be easy, but no.
We’d checked in online so we could make sure we sat together, and thought it would make life easier when we got to the airport. Never make assumptions that involve machinery doing the right thing. There was a problem with the check-in, so that although our flight to Lisbon was fine, it hadn’t linked up with the flight to Brasilia. Never mind though. After over half an hour of waiting for them to fix the problem (added on top of a significant amount of time waiting for them to fix the problems of the two groups in front of us), we were finally sorted.
Straight to the security gate where I’d cleverly to all our liquids in the required clear plastic bag. Unlike many others, by the looks of it. Our next problem was shoes. Damn that shoe bomber, because my son didn’t want to take his shoes off. At all. Cue much kicking and screaming, then having his shoes wrenched off him, and even more screaming as he refused to go through the security scanner without them. He did calm down quite quickly once they were back on and he was promised cold orange juice.
Having grabbed water and juice for the flight (no dehydration for my family thank you very much), our flight was on its last call and we walked straight through to board the plane without any more waiting.
TB managed to stay awake for the take off, and was very good when his ears blocked a little. Then he fell asleep. Slept through breakfast and woke up in time to land. Our breakfast consisted of an ‘interesting’ scrambled egg and red Leicester Panini. His mainstay was a couple of sandwiches. An a kit-kat. I wonder if I could order myself a kids meal for the way back?
A bus delivered us from the plane to the next stop in Lisbon airport, where our next problem began. Another security gate. The queue was massively long, but Portuguese and Brasilians alike, are happy to send pregnant mothers, the elderly, disabled persons and those with small kids straight to the front to push in. There are some parts you long for in the UK! Of course the trouble wasn’t the queue, it was TB. He took one look at the familiar set-up and started howling and digging his heels in again. They took one look at our remaining liquids and told us we couldn’t take them through (hadn’t anticipated another security point, stupidly, and bought enough water and juice for both legs of the trip), but one look at a screaming TB and they changed their minds without even being asked. That trauma over, and we found our gate and set in for a 40 minute wait until we could board.
TB happily played with his transformers while we waited, and then once we boarded the next bus (having queue-jumped again!) continued to be an angel. He needed the loo, but refused to go while we were waiting for our gate to open. As we sat on the bus and he asked to go, I told him about the toilets on the plane, but he sounded rather dubious. He thought, though, that it was a rather hilarious idea that when you flushed a plane toilet, its contents would fall out of the bottom and land on someone’s head. Well, I had to try something. And he loved seeing a military helicopter land as we were waiting to get off the bus. But then he saw the plane. And we saw more howling and digging in of heels. He was desperate not to get on that plane. I picked him up as I couldn’t drag him and carry our hand luggage, but he was throwing himself around so much that I could barely stand up whilst trying to climb the stairs to the plane. We deposited ourselves in our seats and he continued to scream, nothing would calm him down, although a huge cuddle tamed him a little. But an air hostess saved the day. She gave him a puzzle. Having found the way to his heart, the puzzle was immediately plonked on the table and put together and any screaming was forgotten.
And he was excellent for the entire journey. We’d brought plenty of activity books and toys for him to play with, fearing than an in-flight movie wouldn’t be enough to keep him quiet. His mega-sleep on the way to Lisbon prevented another sleep for quite some hours, but he happily coloured in and did dot-to-dot whilst keeping half an eye on his mini tv screen showing the progress of our journey on a map. He did start to watch Ratatouille at one point, but decided the map was more fun. Although he’d had his breakfast while we were waiting to board, he demolished his huge lunch only an hour later, and continued to play. I took the first half of the journey with him (we had two seats by the window and another one across the aisle), letting Yuri sleep, until about half way through the journey when I could barely keep my eyes open any longer. However, the moment I switched seats with Yuri, the boy fell fast asleep. The seat across the aisle did have no-one next to it though, so I could at least stretch out and sleep in semi-comfort. I woke up in time for snacks, and so did the boy, and soon he was happily munching away, watching Ratatouille in Portuguese (with Portuguese subtitles!).
After we landed and headed to immigration, we left Yuri (as neither I nor Tommy have valid Brasilian passports) and once again headed straight to the front of the queue(!). We left Yuri queuing and headed to get our luggage, although by the time Yuri joined us, there was still no sign of any of our three suitcases. One appeared fairly soon afterwards, but the others still remained awol. I was starting to worry slightly, as they’d still not arrived and most of the luggage from our flight had been collected already. But eventually they appeared and we exited the airport.
Yuri phoned Grandma to let her know we’d arrived. She wasn’t waiting at the airport for us as she’d done that the night before (crossed wires meant she thought we were arriving a day earlier than we were and she’d spent hours waiting at the airport for us to appear). She soon arrived with L and some of the rest of the family and after much hugging and amazement at TB’s growth (other than Grandma, L & T, no-one’s seen him since he was four months old) we went home.
Things have changed since we were last here three years ago. More photos have gone up, the dog has gone and there’s a fish. But some things haven’t changed a bit. We spent the evening watching big brother! So we’ve got quite a bit planned, and also not a lot. But we’re all happy to be here.
