And because of this I've learned to be prepared. My puke
instinct is dead on. A few months ago he was home sick but I had told a friend
I'd go walking with her. Figuring the fresh air would do him good, I dug out the
stroller and off we went. He barely said a word the whole day.
We got to lunch and he still didn't say anything but he
had that look. I whipped out the puke bag despite his protests. And of course
within seconds he was puking. My friends were slack jawed wondering how I knew.
My response "he got quiet". My friend "but he hasn't said a word
all day". Ahhh but there is quiet and pre-puke quiet.
And so prepping for our journey home to the states, I
packed 2 puke bags and an extra set of clothes. Last year he puked on the plane
(into my hands no less) twice so I wanted to be ready. But I wasn't ready for it all
to fall to shit on the way to the airport this time - live and learn.
That's right. Yeah I had the window down in the cab. And
I even had a puke bag out because he was suddenly claiming to be sleepy
(another tell tale sign). And yet I turned my back for a second and missed the
first wave - all over him, the cab and me. With 15 hrs of travel still to go,
we'd already had a puker and we still had 15 mins before the airport.
We got to the airport and I put Aidan in line with the
bags. There was a nice mom and daughter that offered to keep an eye on him so I
could clean Liam and myself up. The unfortunate thing in Spain (at this particular moment) is they try to be
environmentally friendly. So that means no paper towels in the bathroom.
Normally I see this as a good thing, but not today. So I stripped him down and
just started to take water from the sink and wipe him down and then stuck him
under the hand dryer. Not very effective and I'd used my last baby wipes in the
car.
Smelling like vomit we checked in, got through security
and even customs was easy this year. It's like they knew I couldn't handle one
more thing. The kids behavior was actually great for once which I desperately
needed.
We bought some wipes and cleaned ourselves up. At least
got the puke smell down to a minimum. The kids were super excited about this
trip and that feeling is contagious and so we moved on from the car puke to the day ahead.
But come on, one puke in the start of the trip should
mean that the rest is smooth sailing right?
Yeah not so much. Because not only was I flying solo with the kids, but
the fun wasn't over yet. As we were in the queue to take off for London (our layover destination) he once again had
that look but I was ready. Thank god British air has lots of puke bags. And the
people in front of me kept handing me theirs. Good thing because he puked five
more times JUST ON THE SHORT FLIGHT TO LONDON. Yes that is 6 times BEFORE our 7 hour long haul flight.
You can imagine the panic going thru my head on that 2+ hr flight to London
knowing I still had a 3 hr layover AND 7 more in the air. Even Liam gave me a look of panic when he
asked if this was our long flight and I responded that no, we still had the
long flight to go.
During our layover in London, he seemed a bit weak and kept saying to me "Poor little Liamie (kind of like he did when he got stitches in Italy)" over and over again. How about poor little mommy??? He didn't eat a thing at lunch but at least had some conversation. He seemed better on the ground. Despite a 3 hour layover, the time actually flew by and believe or not, I'm calling this our best trip yet to the States as far as logistics go and moods. Last year our 3 hour layover ended up 60 panic filled minutes as we ran through Heathrow. This year we stopped for a somewhat leisurely lunch at an actually really good place (I do love Heathrow for it's shopping and food - if you have to have a long layover, that's the place to be) and took our time getting to our gate with only 20 minutes to wait til we boarded. Not bad at all.
But of course, within minutes of getting in the air, the puke fest began again. My intention had been to not let the kids sleep a ton on the plane in order to avoid having them get up at 3AM for the day. However, given that every time Liam woke up he vomited, I opted for the lesser of two evils and just let him be. Thankfully that meant he puked slightly less than the first leg of the trip with only 4 times.
So that brought our grand total to 11 times over the course of our 10 hours in the air. That's almost one time per hour. That is a really really long day. Thankfully when we got to my parents last night he seemed like he was feeling back to normal as there was a bit of fear in me that we were starting off our vacation with the stomach bug...
And yet I was the epitome of patience and kindness with
them despite everything being thrown at me. I didn't let it stress or annoy me because damn it we are going on
vacation and no puking is going to stop that!!!! However, from now on everyone can come visit
us in Barcelona because I'm not doing this trip again....
Besos,
Julie
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