After a horror flight with her restless infant, Evelyn Lewin dreams of staying on holiday and never going home.

It's a bad sign when your baby is bored on a car trip. Especially when that car trip leads to the airport. Which leads to a four-hour flight. That is followed by yet another car trip. A very bad sign. Mind you, our little one wasn't crying or anything like that. Rather, she was 'talking'.

Well, perhaps referring to my daughter's verbal communication as talking is a bit generous. She alternates mumbles with shrieks, and has worked out a clever system of going through each vowel and then repeating them, in no particular order, at varying pitch, and with no musicality whatsoever. Even we, her adoring parents, find this habit a little grating.

But when we arrived at the airport our bub was doing rather well, so we didn't think twice before buying coffee. But my calm demeanour vanished when I was faced with the task of juggling a struggling baby, a nappy bag and a nappy-laden backpack, while my husband wrestled two coffees, three bags and a stroller across the busy terminal.

We eventually arrived at our gate, but upon seeing previously tranquil faces look up at us with fear (that we might be sitting next to them), we quickly scurried off to an empty gate and gave the baby a feed. We boarded our flight just as our little one was due for her sleep.

I strapped her into the sling and confidently headed down the aisle to our seats. We made it to our seats and were feeling pretty good. Things had so far gone according to plan; it was now sleep time and we were pretty sure our clockwork baby would do her thing and have her usual two-hour nap. Oh, how wrong we were.

We spent the next few hours rocking, singing and employing every sleep trick that we had so carefully avoided until now. We rued the fact that we hadn't brought a dummy with us, even though our daughter had never used one. We spoke in soft voices, we sang soothing lullabies. But no, each time we tried to soothe her she became more excited, so we gave up. What harm could it do if she doesn't sleep, we thought? What's the worst she can do? Cry?

No, 'talk'. Or, more correctly, shriek loudly, as though she was being tortured. She alternated these shrieks with devastating looks. How could you guys do this to me? What have I ever done to you? And so we bounced her, and played with her, and read to her, and walked her up and down the aisle.

After a few more hours of shrieking, it was time for yet another feed and then, midway through her fifth mouthful, our little angel gently shut her eyes, flopped her head forwards and fell asleep.

Of course about five minutes later the plane made a sudden jolt, causing her to erupt into a flustered, confused wail of overtired crying, which is how we spent the remaining 30 minutes of the flight, under the malevolent gaze of our fellow passengers.

And so as I sit here on the last day of our holiday, I'm feeling very apprehensive about our return trip. I've had actual dreams about never going home. Somehow I think that the people on our planned return flight wouldn't miss us if we didn't end up joining them after all.