Pukey toddler, blueberries, and an airline that shall remain nameless

We have been traveling lately, so updating this blog has been difficult, but I will try to be more attentive.  Last week, we flew to West Virginia to visit my husband’s extended family and so they could see Bear for the first time in the past year.  We flew last year there with Bear, which strangely was an easier process with a five month-old.  Then, I was able to breastfeed her for much of the time, and despite being a human pacifier for the better part of a day, at least, I could pacify her in some way.  We also flew to California in May, which by coincidence fell on Day 1 of her bout with Roseola, so the poor girl had a high fever and clearly didn’t feel well, but in retrospect, she was quite subdued.

Flying with Feverish Bear is nothing compared to flying with Pukish Bear.  As we parked the car at the airport just prior to checking in for our first flight, I heard Bear coughing from the backseat and then gurgling.  We turned around to find Bear covered with the milk that she consumed earlier that morning.  So, we changed Bear in the parking lot and used about a million baby wipes trying to clean up the puke-covered car seat that we were getting ready to check for the flight.

Then, we were delayed from actually boarding the plane, because despite having booked our tickets and clearly indicating that we had a lap child with us, the airline had assigned us seats in a row without the extra oxygen mask for said lap child.  Instead of simply reassigning other passengers to new seats, they asked for volunteers to switch with us.  Apparently, no one would volunteer, so they had me sit in a single seat in the very back of the plane with Bear and had my husband sit elsewhere.  I was already annoyed with the unpleasant start to our trip, but I was really unhappy at the prospect of wrangling a nauseous fifteen month-old by myself.

Naturally, Bear proceeded to scream for most of the flight, except when she was eating, which resulted in her consumption of A LOT of blueberries.  She was also exhausted since it happened to be naptime.  Fortunately, she has a very good daddy who willingly walked up and down the aisle with her until, toward the end of the flight, she fell asleep on his shoulder.  My husband decided to just sit back down in his seat with her.  As we were getting ready to land, the flight attendant told my husband that he had to move.  Clearly this flight attendant had never struggled to get an infant to sleep (or stay asleep), but instead of causing a scene, my annoyed husband eased as carefully as he could out of his seat and walked back to where I was sitting to trade me seats.  Shortly after sitting down and as the flight was landing, Bear began screaming again.  I looked back, and my husband painfully indicated that I needed to get back there as soon as I could.  So, I waited until the plane was on the ground, and even though the ubiquitous seatbelt light had not been turned off, I charged back to where Bear and her daddy were wrestling and where both of them were covered with blue puke.  I did my best to help my husband and to console my crying baby while ignoring the flight attendant who was yelling at me over the loud speaker that I was not allowed out of my seat at that point.

I’ll admit.  I’m kind of a rule-follower, but I had had it with that flight.  I yelled back at her – past every passenger on the flight – “I DO NOT CARE!”  We found out later that there is some huge fine for being out of your seat during take-off and landing, but fortunately, by the time the flight attendant was able to get out of her seat, passengers were already disembarking.  We took our puke-covered baby and happily got off that plane.

The rest of the trip was more fun, and fortunately, the flights home were not as traumatic.  I am now thinking that we should avoid flying until Bear is at least three and certainly not within twenty-four hours of her consuming any blueberries.