The Traveling Day from you-know-where!

This is one of those posts that could easily be boring for you to read, but that I want my two boys and myself to always remember for some of the sacrifices I made for them when they were young... ;-)
Before traveling with the boys across the United States, I mentally prepare myself for a hard and long day. Along with mentally pumping myself up, I get other necessaries ready like lots of snacks, coloring things, and other small toys. Well, I don't know what I could have done to prepare myself mentally and emotionally for our recent travelings. It started off fine with my my mom dropping us off at the airport at about 5:30 AM and we were at the gate 40 minutes before it was to take off. They were boarding another flight, so I sat with the kiddos at the terminal after getting a stroller tag and taking Kal to the bathroom. Fifteen minutes before the scheduled departure, I called my mom to let her know all was well. I thought it odd that our plane was not there yet. As I was talking to my mom I heard my name over the airport intercom and something about getting to my plane for an "on time departure". I immediately looked down at my ticket again to see the gate was C-19 and my boarding number was C-13 though I had read it backwards and was sitting at the wrong terminal! I gathered the boys, backpack, carry on bag, and camera equipment suitcase while pushing Tristen in the stroller. We ran to the correct terminal. Upon arriving, I pulled out my tickets, handed them to the agent, looked over at Kalvin and saw a sour look on his face followed by gags and strange coughs.

"Do you have a barf bag?!!" I asked the agent man.

"Not here!... he said as he looked around frantic."

Luckily there was a trash can within feet of where we were standing, so Kalvin only got a handful of chunks on the ground and most of the throw up made it to the trash.
Another agent soon arrived on scene who apparently had witnessed the happenings  and said, "We need to board this plane; I can't let you on if he's sick! Where are you going, let's find you another flight..."

I was dumbfounded and didn't know what to say. She Continued, "I don't even know if there are 2 seats next to each other anymore, this is a full flight and there probably isn't room for that suitcase you have either."

I was gonna scream! I wanted to yell, "I was here on time! Really! I didn't just sleep in or mosey on over. I was at the wrong terminal! I had no idea my boy was going to be sick!"
She began down the walkway to the plane, so we followed. A flight attendant asked someone to move for us and there was plenty of room for my suitcase. I was so grateful for a woman's sacrifice in moving for us so we could sit together (and felt bad for the man we squished up against the window).

My nerves were settling slightly when 30 minutes into the 4.5 hour flight, Kalvin began gagging and coughing in that familiar way. I grabbed the barf bag and caught it ALL. Phew! ... I took a few deep breaths and tried to mentally reassure myself that this day was not going to be completely terrible. Tristen was tired and restless, so I took him on a walk up and down the plane about 5 times while Kalvin watched a movie. After many look-at-how-cute-he-is smiles at Tristen (that I tried to vicariously receive for myself in an effort to boost my spirits), we walked back to our seat. Soon after sitting down with Tristen, Kalvin dropped something on the floor and wiggled down from his chair to pick it up. I immediately smelt poop emanating from Kalvin's direction and glanced over to see a wet spot on the back of his pants. It was diarrhea!
I had packed an extra pair of underwear luckily, but not a whole set of clothes! I wasn't sure what to do. After some time, I decided on a plan, called a flight attendant over whom I asked to hold Tristen while I took Kalvin to the bathroom. I took his clothes off and washed his pants in the itzy bitzy sink. I left a lot of soap residue on the jeans in hopes to overpower the poop smell, put a diaper on him, put his soaking wet pants back on him and threw his underwear in the trash.
Within minutes of getting back to our seat, Kalvin threw up again (all in a bag, thanks to my Super Mom reflexes) and I discovered Tristen was poopy as well (with diarrhea). I could not wait to get off this plane!
After what seemed days, the plane began its final descent. I couldn't be happier to be one step closer to home and a shower. We got off the plane for our 1.5 hour layover and went straight to the bathroom because Tristen and Kalvin were very poopy again. It took a while cleaning them both up. I only had one diaper left and decided Tristen needed it more than Kalvin. I told Kalvin over and over that if he had to "toot" that we needed to RUN to the the bathroom. He seemed to understand.

After leaving the bathroom we made our way back downstairs on the elevator, and waited in line to get a stroller tag. We were finally ready for the next flight and noticed that a whole hour had already passed by, meaning our flight would be leaving in 30 minutes. How all that took an hour, I'm not sure, but by the time we got the stroller tag, and walked to our terminal, our plane was there and de-boarding. I looked down at Kalvin and asked one more time if he needed to go to the bathroom before getting on the plane, he said, "Yes." I knew I didn't have much time to get him to the toilet because, 1. The diarrhea was coming whether we were ready or not and 2. our plane was going to be boarding very soon.

It's illegal to leave your suitcases and bags unsupervised at the airport except when your toddler has diarrhea so we left all our things near a crowd and sprinted for the bathroom. It was funny because Kal thought it was a game and was laughing the whole way there while chasing me. We got aaaalllllllll the way to the bathroom and Kal went in the stall while I parked the stroller, but just as the days events had foreshadowed, Kalvin had pooped his pants and underwear, again. He looked as I pulled his pants and down and he laughed and laughed. I have now idea why he thought it was funny, really! I threw his underwear away, stuck him on the toilet (almost screamed outloud) and checked outside the stall door to make sure Tristen had not been kidnapped. I didn't feel I had time to clean the poo off Kal's pants so he stunk pretty bad. We ran from the bathroom and boarded the plane.

I did my best to take up all three chairs on the row, but at the last minute an off the clock flight attendant sat in the isle seat on our our row. She said, "I'm gonna keep you company."
I was sure she'd get up and leave soon after getting a whiff of us, but she stuck it out and actually did keep us very good company on this, our last leg flight of 1 hour. She got me laughing pretty good and almost to tears at one point as she reassured me that even though myself and the kids stunk and we had a horrible day with lots of bad experiences, in the long run, kids are kids and "what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger". We shared several funny stories with one another and I couldn't have asked for the last hour of a miserable day to end any better.

As we stepped off the plane with a radiating diarrhea stench, we were all excited to see Duane! I was very happy to see he had parked the car and was waiting for us inside so I didn't have to worry about getting all our bags from the carousel myself.

I don't have any pictures of the day, though Duane took this fun video of the reunion. There is no sound, but you'll get the idea. Kalvin enters the video first from the right of the screen, you will see his head bobbing, I follow carrying everything and pushing Tristen.

Please understand that when Kalvin pulled the superman pose on the ground, I did not stop walking because I knew he was fine, not because I didn't want to loose momentum (from the heavy items I was towing). ;-)

Oh, it's great to be home, really!