Mother's Pride

Top tip for travelling across international borders armed with a small child who has a different surname to you and holds a different nationality passport to you: acquire a corker of a black eye the day before. If there is one thing that is guaranteed to grab the attention of security and immigration staff the world over it is the sight of a beaten-up single mother travelling with a child who she might just have snatched from the local park (how else could they explain the black eye).

As it is, the black eye was the result of Osh crashing head-long into my eye socket on Monday morning and there is nothing like heaps of attention to ensure that I’m not charged for having heavy bags, handsome young men provide me with baggage trolleys when I’m rapidly running out of arms and getting to the front of the queue.

For a child who normally does not do waiting, patience, sitting still or doing as he is told, Oisin was a joy to travel with on Tuesday. He dragged his Thomas suitcase around Heathrow like a seasoned traveller, didn’t even blink when we took off (my greatest fear was him howling as the air pressure roared through his ears), wolfed down his airline meal, slept for 2 hours and was bright eyed and bushy tailed when we landed. We played games, drew pictures, had endless conversations about what the public announcement had just said (what is she saying Mim? She telling up to put our seat’s in the upright position. What is she saying now Mim? She’s saying it all again in French Osh. Why Mim? Because the Canadians speak English and French darling. Why Mim?.....at which point a brief synopsis of Canadian colonial history and the endless linguist arguments between Quebec and the rest of the country defeated me). Above you'll see a photo of Osh taken just before we landed and then one of him atop all the luggage as Auntie Stephanie paid for the carpark at the airport in TO.

The only other memorable moment from the plane journey (and personally, I prefer uneventful plane journeys) was finding myself sitting next to a woman from Edmonton sporting a mullet (not attractive) and a fine line in racist comments directed mostly at the burgeoning Asian population of Canada…but she did trade her chocolate and ice-cream for Osh’s salad. I think we got the better end of that bargain!

He finally fell asleep (protesting all the while that he was not sleepy) at 2am our time (9pm Canada) making me a truly proud mother and endlessly grateful that 6 hours trapped in a seat with Oisin was actually a lot of fun!