My sister dropped The Penpal, TD, and I off at Winnipeg’s James Richardson international airport bright and early. We checked our two large suitcases and I slung the airplane approved car seat over my shoulder in its travel friendly carrying case. With the carrying case it was just over 10kg, and I instantly noticed the weight.
Usually when The Penpal and I fly from Winnipeg to Japan, our fastest and cheapest option is Winnipeg – Vancouver – Tokyo Narita. This time the cheapest flight was Winnipeg – Toronto – Tokyo Haneda. We would spend two extra hours in the air, but would save some time getting from the airport to Numazu after landing.
After clearing security we had about 45 minutes before boarding. The Penpal and TD spent most of this time in the children’s play area that should be standard in every airport. I spent most of the time in the slowest Tim Hortons line in the entire country. We ended up carrying muffins and bagels for breakfast onto the flight.
On our flight to Toronto, I was seated next to TD on one side of the aisle, with The Penpal just across the aisle. Right before takeoff I tried to insert the earplanes to help TD’s ears adjust to the pressure changes during takeoff and landing. This is something we hadn’t practiced at home. He managed to remove and lose one of the earplugs just before takeoff.
Takeoff itself was uneventful – all the long hours of playing “airplane” at home had prepared TD for the sudden acceleration and lift off. He was actually really enjoying takeoff while I had him sipping on apple juice.
Spoiler alert: For anyone who has problems reading about kids puking, I would recommend skipping to the next blog entry.
As we neared our cruising altitude, TD started to look uncomfortable. When I asked he told me that his ears hurt. I pulled out our secret weapon – a purple lollipop to suck on which would hopefully help his ears. After a few slurps on the popsicle he suddenly coughed and barfed all over his Ipad before bursting into tears.
I passed off the Ipad to The Penpal and took TD to the tiny airplane bathroom to assess the damage; there was only a little purple barf on his shirt, The Ipad had taken most of the blast. We got cleaned up and headed back to our seat where I kept him in my lap.
The crying had helped his ears and TD was now just looking a bit nauseous instead of in pain. We started watching the now clean Ipad again just as I started to feel pretty good about how things were going. Surely the worst was over and we could enjoy the remainder of our 2 hour flight.
Without warning a purple geyser erupted from TD all over the Ipad (again). I turned him towards me just as the second wave came, coating both of our matching Winnipeg Jets shirts and hitting giraffy the giraffe. I picked him up and rushed him to the bathroom, but the show was already over. I was covered in purple barf from my neck to my crotch.
As The Penpal cleaned up the car seat and Ipad (again), I did my best to clean up TD and myself. Despite my efforts, there is only so much a person can do in an airplane bathroom when covered in barf.
The Penpal came to check on us and asked if we wanted to change our clothes. Not knowing if a third wave of purple awfulness was yet to come, I declined, not wanting to use up our only change of clothes until necessary. We dosed TD with children’s Gravol (which we should have done BEFORE takeoff) and returned to our seats.
The rest of the flight was incident free, however by the end I became aware that even with my cleanup, we didn’t smell very good. We were seated in the middle of a group of junior high school kids from Brandon on their way to the maritimes. After landing, as we were waiting for our turn to deplane, the kids started asking each other what the horrible smell was in our area.
That, my young friends, is the smell of parenthood. Pay attention in your sex ed classes, it could happen to you.
Drinking in Japan 