The Baby Expert: Aviophobia

Ever since Caitlyn’s been born, the wife and I have been mulling over when to take a trip back to the States. We’ve made several plans, but have always backed out of them. My parents are quite anxious for us to visit, probably so they don’t have to keep making the grueling journey back, but we have been very hesitant to commit to a date.

During the summer, we had talked about taking a short trip to Japan to see how Caitlyn would fare on the airplane. After all, I wanted to make sure I knew what we were getting ourselves into before making a 14+ hour flight back to Texas. However, in the end, we waited too long and never booked the trip. That, plus the fact that we were still scared of what would happen on the flight.

Along comes this year’s Chinese New Year. I have a month-long break from school and my parents kept urging us to go back. I didn’t want to say ‘no,’ but I didn’t want to say, ‘yes,’ either, so I just said, ‘maybe.’ Unfortunately, they took that as a ‘yes,’ and every time we talked to them, they always talked about us coming back during the holiday as if it were a given.

Finally, I had to break it to them that we probably weren’t going to go back because we didn’t feel Caitlyn was ready for such a flight. Of course, they said that was nonsense and that she would be fine. Easy to say that when you’re not the one taking her on the plane. But when they came back a few months ago for their visit, they quickly realized how hard it was to keep Caitlyn in one place without her creating a fuss and agreed that it was best not to take her back yet.

Therefore, the wife and I decided to take a trip to Malaysia instead to test the water. Actually, I decided on Malaysia. The wife wanted to go to Singapore, but in my opinion, it’s just another run-of-the-mill, modern city. If I want to see a city, I can simply stay put right where we are. Besides, I figured we would just run ourselves ragged by walking all over the place if we went there.

That’s why I chose Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. All we have to do is relax at the beach and watch Caitlyn dig sand to her heart's content. And since I booked our stay at a nice resort, everything we would need would be right there. 6 days, 5 nights of pure relaxation.

But in order to have those 6 days and 5 nights of pure relaxation, we have to get there first. On January 23, we’re going to go forth into the unknown. I’m already bracing myself for the worst. But it’s just a 3-hour flight. How bad can it be, right? Right?!!