We've made it to Taipei. Perhaps it's unwise to boast when we still have to make it back, but the plane rides weren't as bad as I thought they'd be. Of course, in our three plane rides, we got pretty lucky - in the first ,we had three bulkhead seats for the three of us (even though Mirabelle at just under two was still a lap child); in the second, we flew business class; and in the third, we actually had four seats to ourselves.
I didn't think it possible to keep a toddler in an airplane seat for 12 hours straight, but somehow we pulled it off. I had read that with toddlers, it's best not to let them know that getting out of the seat was an option (like a car), but I didn't think Mirabelle would go for that. But it did work, and instead of letting her roam in the aisles, we let her jump around in her seat or on the floor for intervals. We had videos for her, but she actually didn't log as many hours watching as I would have thought. Instead, it was a little bit of everything - watching TV, napping, eating, opening her 'presents,' coloring, jumping on the seat, playing games on the iPhone, and, of course, sucking on her pacifier and pulling my hair. After about 8 hours on the nonstop flight from Honolulu to Taipei, Mirabelle asked to 'go outside,' but luckily took it pretty well when we broke it to her that there were still four hours to go.
All in all, it went well, and I was glad we had opted for the nonstop flight on China Airlines (despite their poor reputation) instead of indirect flights on Japan Air. When we arrived at the Taipei airport, Mirabelle was greeted enthusiastically by a team of Taiwanese women in a duty free shop - a fine beginning to the trip.
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