This may be a banner trip in terms of screw-ups for Jess and me. I recognize that I am prone to mishaps (that sometimes result in sprinting across a tarmac in Tahiti), but I’d say M’s toddler-hood is really kicking things into overdrive.
Things started at the Star Alliance Lounge when we were waiting for our flight to Taipei. We thought M had gone #2, and after drawing straws to see who would change her, I prepared to take her to the bathroom.
“Hey, where are the wipes?”
“I thought you packed them?”
“I thought you packed them?”
“……………………………”
Check that, this happened towards the beginning of our EVA Air flight. I know this because we both decided we were screwed because there was no way of procuring butt wipes. Luckily, at that particular moment, it was a false alarm, but sure enough, an hour out, duty called. We ended up using our regular disinfectant wipes which was not ideal but did the trick.
Not content to make this mistake only once, we decided to go next level by completely forgetting our consolidated diaper bag in Tainan before our 2 hour train ride back to Taipei. Which of course happened an hour after this exchange:
“Hey we should change her right?”
“Probably but we can also change her at the train station while we’re waiting, right?”
“OK…sounds like a good idea.”
NOPE. Luckily in this case we were able to rely on the kindness of strangers. As you may recall, Taiwan is super kid friendly. So we stalked all the parents at the breastfeeding room in the Tainan HSR train station until we worked up the guts to ask someone for a diaper.
Of course, they were super nice about it and even offered two, but we were so embarrassed. Terrible parents! And this was followed by the jet lag incident on the train, which I’m still recovering mentally from.
Diaper bag incident #3 occurred on our slightly nightmarish flight from Taipei to Hong Kong which I haven’t even gotten to write up yet. Let’s just say that the flight attendants called back to Taipei Taoyuan reporting a missing diaper bag only for me to realize I had put it in an overhead compartment separate from the rest of our stuff fifteen minutes later. <hangs head in shame>
Since we’ve arrived in Hong Kong, things have been pretty smooth unless you count M breaking a phone charger as a mishap.
Oh, and I’m currently typing this with my laptop hooked up to the hotel room TV since a series of unfortunate events has caused the monitor on my laptop to go bust. NBD.
Anyway, mishaps while traveling can cause a lot of stress. We do our best to roll with the punches, and for the most part I do, but sometimes it’s tough not to let things get to you. I was particularly shaken up (or something like that) by the whole laptop is busted situation.
In the end, you’re on the road to enjoy yourself, and you just have to let things go – something I find very hard to do. But mishaps are going to happen, they almost always lead to amusing anecdotes for dinner parties, and in the end, there’s nothing you can do about them – so enjoy the ride. The most important thing is that everyone is healthy and happy. Though we’ve still got a few more days to screw up some more so I’m crossing my fingers…
And hey, at least I got to eat this today.
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What a hassle. I’m never having kids!
Sorry you are having such travel mishaps but kudos to you for doing it anyway! Y’all are at the worst travel stage right now and you are doing some pretty ambitious things. Things get a lot easier once you pass that second birthday and even easier once your toddler is potty trained. I’ve come out on the other side with one kid and am surviving doing it all over again.
Haha yeah. We survived HK Disney today 🙂
Can’t wait to get a report! We loved Hong Kong Disneyland, but a) we’re huge Disney nuts and b) we did it with a 5 year old and left the (then 7 month old) baby at home.