Murphy's (or should I say Murray's) Law

No, the plane didn't crash. The turbulence began well before take-off, however. After many goodbyes, Charlie very kindly took on the task of driving us to Heathrow. Ethan was acting a little more irritable than usual but otherwise Ok, until he started complaining loudly, "OW, My tummy hurts!" I kept trying to distract him but it didn't work for long. About an hour or so into our journey, after another loud complaint, I turned around to see him throwing up and throwing up...and again, I say, throwing up. I began to feel sick myself just thinking of the day ahead...navigating an unfamiliar airport and surviving an 8-hour flight with a sick child.

Charlie's calm, unflappable response probably kept me from jumping out of the car. He came up with a plan and we were able to stop a few minutes later at a large rest area. While Charlie went inside to buy more wipes, bags and other helpful items, I stripped Ethan of his vomit soaked clothes and wiped him down in a busy parking lot as it began to drizzle. My hastily packed suitcase was open wide for all passerbys to see as I clawed through it for clean clothes. Charlie then took contaminated items like Ethan's all-important blanket and car seat into a bathroom to clean them and I took Ethan inside to see if I could clean him up more.

Well, moving on...Things really did get better for the most part. Charlie stayed with us til we had our boarding passes, pointed us in the right direction and said goodbye. What would we have done without him? So...we headed for our gate with a dripping wet blanket hanging from Ethan's stroller, which I tried a couple times to dry off in various airport bathrooms under that hand blower thing. Didn't help too much.

We made it to the plane which unfortunately didn't take off for over an hour, during which I used almost every trick I had carefully packed to distract and charm. The important thing was that no vomiting occurred (Claire I tried to work in the barf bag quote but just couldn't bring myself to use that word--Ok, I just did). Anyway, I was so grateful that all the food Ethan begged for actually stayed put. Even the constant song and dance I had to keep up for Ethan's distraction was bearable. Barely.

I became obsessed with that little visual representation of the plane's progress on the video screen in front of me...willing the plane to move another millimeter towards Detroit.
Well, to keep all this a readable size, we arrived safely and vomit-free until the drive home when the same thing happened. This time I was a little more prepared with a B. Bag at hand and caught some of it. So, really, things COULD have been worse.

Ah, the drama...so good for blogging. So bad for living.