South by southeast

And just like that - and that, and that, and 31 more hours of that - here we are. BWI to Cape Town; Sabina Avenue to Sylvia Street. And L. and I didn't even ask once, folks, for extra mini-bottles of Scotch on the two long haul flights.

But even if we had, it likely would have been a cultured late-evening exercise in enjoyment, and not an act of simple desperation. Because, really, the trip went as well as it probably could have. Cleo was both patient and tired, which makes for a docile toddler, and she slept for the majority of both flights, robbing us of sympathy-generating stories but allowing us to get some rest and to finally get caught up on Hollywood's output over the past two years. And the nine-hour layover in London? A lark, an etude, a chance to explore a random English suburb: we took the Tube six stops to Boston Manor, and soon found ourselves pushing Cleo in a swing next to a charismatic 3-year-old named Toby on one side and a precious cottage serving fruit pies on the other.

Can I sum up the trip, then, in a few words? We were both struck at times, I think, by the utter simplicity with which we used to travel: I faintly remember a time, long ago, when we didn't have to push large carts of luggage, and when a layover in London would have meant a race to the British Museum instead of to a playground, and when our first thoughts on boarding a plane wouldn't have involved assessments of the overhead bins, to see if they could fit a stroller. Yes, yes, we used to travel simply, and selfishly, and happily for all of that. But there was a happiness in this trip, too. In Cleo's sustained delight in a new cast-iron engine that could be rolled over the meal tray of a 747, and in her calm but grammatically accomplished proclamation, near a large window at Heathrow, that "I see plane coming." A different brand of happiness, then, but a real sort, nonetheless.

Along the way, when we weren't pouring orange juice into sippy cups or watching Owen Wilson, we both read, for fun, a bit of Allison Pearson's very sharp and pitch-perfect 2002 jeremiad on modern motherhood, I Don't Know How She Does It. I'll simply say that our trip confirmed the sense of a sentence uttered by the mother of two, on page 31: "Close my eyes and try to imagine a world without Emily and Ben: like a world without music or lightning." Such worlds are not impossible to imagine - and, indeed, both L. and I once loved traveling without children. But recalling such past times can take some effort, when they've been eclipsed by a new, and equally rich, order.