Honey, can I help you in any way?

You don't even want to know why the captain of my flight asked me that. But I'm going to tell you anyway. For those of you who are weak of stomach, move on to facebook or something. It's not going to be a pretty post.

* Interrupting note: Before I can get into it, I know I told you that the last post was going to be the end of my travel tales, but this one will truly be the last. Because this story, well...it must be told.

Our flight itinerary for our trek home was a recipe for motherhood disaster:

1) Wake Luka up at the last second possible and transfer him, in his jammies, to the car seat for a 7:00am drive to Chicago's O'Hare airport...from Indianapolis. 4 hrs.

2) Quickly dress Luka in the car (hide dirty diaper under driver's seat...jeje...Dad, I really didn't do that on purpose!) say our last sad goodbyes *tear* and juggle Luka plus all luggage through the check in line, trying to keep him from running all over the airport while convincing the desk assistant that yes, that is me in that very old fashioned passport that does not scan and expires next year. Then get lunch at McGross while we wait what seems an eternity to board the plane for a 2 1/2 hour flight to Dallas.

3) Where we wait some more to board another plane to Central America for another 4 hours.

4) Only to then go through customs, again lugging the babe and the bags, greet my long lost husband and his mom.

5) To then cram ourselves and our bags/purchases into our car at 9:30 p.m. and drive another 3 1/2 hours home. In the pouring rain.

He discovered a little nook.

Everyone at the airport was impressed with his soccer skills.
I am too but I should be.

Mah sweet thang.

Ahm. Eww, Wee One. I really don't want to know what types of germs have infested themselves into that carpet. But I am all about him getting his wiggles out before the flight. Wiggle away, I say!

Every little boys' obsession...planes!

We were saying, "Bye bye, America."

Why can I not lift this thing???
(maybe because you are standing on it?)

Hmm. Whaths in here Mamma?

He liked feeling the air shooting out on his face.

Thank God for an empty row on the long flight. He could jump around all he wanted to, when the seat belt sign was off, of course.

So yeah. That sounds like an awful day, right? Well it wasn't. It was great actually. Luka could not have behaved any better than he did. He slept on the first car ride. Ate his breakfast in the car with no fuss or mess. Played like a well behaved, soccer star in the airports, slept on both flights, and sat contentedly whenever he was awake. Overall, a great success. I was shocked and pleased. And grateful.

And then....

And thennnn. Of course. Disaster stuck. During the last five minutes of the flight portion of the trip it all unraveled into a horror story that I wish was no more than a nightmare that I wake up from and think, "Whew, that would have been bad had it been..." But it WAS true! Ugh. It happened!

I was holding Luka on my left hip while handing the immigration officer our passports and forms. Luka coughed. It was a funny cough...it sounded...the officer and I looked at him. The Wee one then proceeded to throw up spew vomit all over me, all over himself, all over the floor, on the diaper bag and camera case hanging from my right shoulder, and all over the immigration forms I had so neatly filled out. The. Whole. Entire. Room. Stopped. Everything stopped. Every motion froze and every eye widened. Every mouth dropped and every fiber if my being sank. I didn't even know where to begin sorting through this mess. I was close. I was so close to flying into my husbands arms after a great trip. He had been five minutes away and now we had to deal with this, this mess. Poor Luka. I stepped aside from the mess and immediately stripped the Wee of everything he was wearing. The row next to us consisted of all of the flight crew and at that moment a male flight attendant came up to me and handed me a handful of wet ones. I glanced up only to find that everyone, everyone was staring at me. Really. All of the flight attendants, instead of going off to their hotels or to see the city just lined up against the wall with their arms crossed and their brows furrowed shaking their heads and saying, "Poor Girl." Praise God I had stocked the diaper bag well and had a fresh outfit for the Wee, but no clean shoes. I stuffed all of his soiled clothes in a bag, wiped my dress down as best as I could and scrubbed the sides of the diaper bag and camera case. At some point in the middle of all of this Mr. Captain himself came to me and said, "Honey, can I help you in any way?" I kind of laughed inwardly thinking that well, there was vomit all over the floor, if he wanted to start on that, or he could hold my crying baby while I filled out new forms, or wipe off the immigration desk. Haha. But I just thanked him instead and told him that I didn't think there was anything anyone else could do at the moment. And so I proceeded to set Luka down on the floor so that I could fill out new forms, and oh my goodness, what was that flight number and did it really even matter at this point, and Luka's passport number, I don't have it memorized yet and no, I have not had any contact with any cattle as of late and definitely am not carrying more than $10,000 on me. Not now and probably not ever. The whole time Luka stood there, clinging to my skirt and crying that pitiful "sickness" cry and wailing "Mamma, mamma, mamma." Everyone that walked past us threw us a pitying glance and not once did anyone smile. They were just all horrified for me and sorry for Luka. It's almost laughable now, but it really was horrible then. And how anti climactic, too. All of the sudden seeing Jason and Mrs. Ann wasn't going to be the glorious sparkly reunion we had all imagined it to be. I stunk. Luka felt bad. And we were ready to be home. Bathed. And in bed. But there was still a 3 1/2 hr. drive left....siiiiiiiiggggghhhh.

The phrase, "Have a good trip!" has a new meaning to me. And we are finally hommmme.