Hello my lovely bloggy friends, Stella and I are now in Jamaica (my Jamaica 101 post)!

We were invited to come and visit the Beaches Boscobel resort in Jamaica and it’s actually our first “girls’ trip” together. Beaches Resorts cater specifically to families, so we are here to experience the resort and its activities to the fullest. I will be telling you all about it … but first, I want to tell you about the trip to get here.

To fully understand my title, can I ask you to watch this video below? I find it hilarious, but it is 4 minutes long. If you don’t have 4 minutes, tune in at the 2-minute mark where he begins a bit on air travel. (I’ll wait while you watch it, okay? Cool.)

Alright, so not long ago, I wrote a post whining noting how I’d grown tedious of air travel. Stella has been around the world and back to Australia three times, as well as to Cuba and on some small commuter planes on the Big Island of Hawaii, but not since the age of six. When she was six, we came back from a year abroad in Australia and have been settling in to a new home in Ottawa. Now, she’s nine.

Flying with her was a complete revelation to me because, to her, everything really was AMAZING! We got up early to get to the airport and even that was exciting — the getting dressed in the dark, the drive to the airport with the adrenaline and wondering if Mom would miss the plane (since she is late for virtually everything!), and then going through the whole check-in process.

While I’m filling out paperwork and wondering about a variety of travel-related worries (Where are the passports? what did I do with the camera battery? Did I remember to pack underwear? I hope my son doesn’t miss us too much? Where are the passports? I did remember to put my liquids in a separate bag, right? What time is it now? Where are the passports?) she was looking around the airport wide-eyed and saying hello to all of the security staff.

When we’re on the plane and it’s about to take off, she is almost bursting out of her body in excitement! I guess she doesn’t remember flying much when she was younger, or the experience is just far more fascinating now that she’s older. Then, we’re up in the air and she is breathlessly telling me, “Look! We’re above the clouds! Look! I can see the ocean! Look! The houses below look like little toys! Oh. My. This is sooooo cool!”

While she is doing this, I am trying to smile and nod my head in agreement while in my mind, I am thinking “Oh Lord, should I take one of those emergency anti-anxiety pills?” I usually sit down and dig right into my book and pretend I’m sitting in my living room, not in a small metal machine that is flying us through the air. But she’s not accepting any of that — she is absorbing the experience to the fullest … she knows that everything is amazing and she wants to share it with me.

Then when we need to transfer planes in Philadelphia, we realize that we need to take a shuttle bus across the tarmac to another section of the airport. I’m thinking in my mind, “Pain in the butt.” She’s thinking out loud, “Awesome! I hope I get to hold one of those poles!” (You know the metal vertical poles in public transport that you hold on to so you don’t fall over? That’s what she is so excited about.) Then, we’re on the tarmac and she is not even speaking (yes, this is unusual for her!) because she is taking in everything so carefully … the planes, the trucks used to gas-up the planes, the whole bit. I realize that this actually *is* pretty cool because I’ve never really been on a tarmac from this perspective.

When, at long last, the plane’s wheels touch down in Jamaica she whoops out loudly in happiness.

Honestly, if for no other reason, *this* is why you should travel with your children. Kids are so good for us adults. Everything really is amazing and they open our eyes again to the amazing-ness of every day all around us.