Travelling with kids is always risky, just not in the ways you might expect.
We were in the Koru Lounge at Auckland Airport recently, one flight down and another to go, returning to Tauranga from a holiday in Nelson.
The place was packed with people eating their lunch when I told my feisty, instruction-adverse, four-year-old that she and I were going to the toilet before we got on the next plane.
With blond ringlets flowing onto her princess Elsa dress, she clutched the ratty, woolly pink blankie she named Dwinnie and, in her loud toddler voice, announced that she didn't have to go to the toilet:
"But Muum, I felt my poo come out, and it's gone back up my bum."
Well, there's some mental imagery to go with everyone's buffet soup and buns.
I glanced up and grimace-smiled at an older couple close by, who had previously been enjoying their lunch.
The woman was smiling, highly entertained (Nanas LOVE karma). The man continued eating.
"How old is she?" the woman asked with a nostalgic smile, pretending, as so many do, that she just loved the toddler stage.
Relieved by her warm reaction, I tried to hold the conversation while calculating just how far up we were talking.
Should we be running now? Or will there be a reappearance on the next plane ride, just as the seatbelt sign lights up and we are coming in to land? Was it really gone at all? You can never really be sure with toddlers.
"Just turned four, last week," I said.
"Aww."
"Just charming sometimes, isn't it?" I said, as the little princess started clambering over some stools and our hand luggage in an effort to dodge the hand I intended to lead her away with.
"It goes quickly," the lady said, with the expression and tone of someone who has been to war, beaten all odds and survived, blocked out all the bad bits because it was too traumatic and then convinced herself that it really was just lovely all along.
"So they say," I replied, unconvinced.
Her husband looked up at me, put down his fork, and gave me a big grin.
"It only gets worse," he said.