Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Lavatory Love

I just wanted to say that on the 4-hour flight home from Ohio, my kids needed to use the airplane bathroom not once BUT FOUR TIMES.

This particular airplane's bathroom was so small that there wasn't even a changing table behind the toilet. While standing in there, the three of us were all touching each other. There wasn't even space for space between us.

The kids had kicked off their shoes and socks, and so they were barefoot. (i tried to re-shoe them but it was to no avail, and when you are flying alone with two kids aged 3.5 and 2, you pick your battles). In the bathroom, there was amber-colored fluid pooled up on the floor just below the toilet. Betty started jumping in it, making mini splashes, as if we were frolicking in a rainstorm outside our house. I shudder to think of whose urine had soaked into my ankles. The hairy guy wearing the kilt in 27C?

The kids essentially palmed every surface in the bathroom. Toilet seat. Area behind toilet seat. Flusher. Door. Floor. Sink. Garbage pail. You name it. I tried so very hard to keep their little chubby starfish-like hands at their sides, but no dice. I tried even harder to then keep their hands away from their mouths, and I was about 70% successful. (As for the other 30%, hey, it's just good clean dirt, right?) I washed their hands when done, and when we returned to the seats, I Purell-ed the hell out of them, but all the while I wondered how long the gestation period would be for whatever virus and bacteria they'd acquired. Would it be a stomach flu, a cruddy cold, or something far more sinister, the kind of thing you'd only find under a dirty toilet seat in a dark, cramped lavatory? Ah well, WE'D FIND OUT IN ABOUT A WEEK!

The results are in: it's just a cruddy cough, an extra-runny nose and a grouchy disposition. A little long-distance dedication from the business traveller in the exit row, perhaps. No barfing, no scabby rashes, no worms. I think we dodged a bullet. Things are looking up for us, people! I think this is going to be OUR YEAR!

4 comments:

  1. I give you a TON of credit traveling that far with two kids - you are wonder mom!

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  2. Frolicking in "amber colored liquid" made me spit out my juice. Yes, I actually LOL'd. :)

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  3. good luck with the scan next week, I'll be thinking of you.
    I had the same bathroom experience on my way to turkey with the 2 kiddies, I am amazed at how I didn't throw up, all moms are super human, no other explanation

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