A few weeks ago, we took our (then) 9-month-old baby on her first cross-country trip, complete with a layover. We lost 3 hours heading from west to east and forced her to suffer two separate ear-popping take-offs. To boot, we'd subjected her to an hour-long car ride, remote parking at LAX, a shuttle and airport security before the aerial adventure even commenced.
It was a long day for us all, but baby girl was in a great mood anyhow. She smiled, clapped, cooed and made many friends. She was actually impressively well behaved.
The day was of course not without incident.
During the first flight's departure, my husband was holding the baby. He had her wrapped in a soft, warm blanket and was trying to feed her a bottle to ease the discomfort of ear popping. She didn't seem interested in the bottle, even though she'd not eaten much that morning. So he propped her up, she let out a giggle and then he smelled it.
He nudged me. He cautiously moved a corner of the blanket away from her shoulder, and we both peeked inside. The baby was covered and the entire blanket was fill of poop. It was as though we'd wrapped a sheet of poop around her and then tucked her blanket around her for extra warmth.
The seat belt sign was alight. Neither of us felt comfortable pressing the call button for help, nor did we feel comfortable letting it be until it was safe to take the baby to the lavatory.
So we worked together to quickly and effectively change her diaper and clothes and to wrap the soiled clothes and the soiled diaper in the soiled blanket. My husband then tied up the blanket to ensure everything was tucked away, including the smell, and it couldn't roll open during the flight. We placed it under the seat in front of us, wedged between the legs of the chair and my husband's briefcase, and planned to get it off the plane and throw it away asap.
Thankfully the one captive passenger who had to watch this whole thing go down happened to be a father of 9 himself. He assured us again and again that "he's seen it all before."
The rest of the flight was fairly uneventful, but as we had only a short layover coming up, we started to rush getting ourselves organized for deplaning. When we were halfway to the next gate, my husband realized what we'd done and called it to my attention. In our hurry, we left the expertly wrapped, shitty blanket under the seat in front of us.
I would use this as an opportunity to apologize to American Airlines, but they evened the score on the return trip. We and American Airlines are square; but hubby and I will always feel bad about this one anyhow.
It was a long day for us all, but baby girl was in a great mood anyhow. She smiled, clapped, cooed and made many friends. She was actually impressively well behaved.
The day was of course not without incident.
During the first flight's departure, my husband was holding the baby. He had her wrapped in a soft, warm blanket and was trying to feed her a bottle to ease the discomfort of ear popping. She didn't seem interested in the bottle, even though she'd not eaten much that morning. So he propped her up, she let out a giggle and then he smelled it.
He nudged me. He cautiously moved a corner of the blanket away from her shoulder, and we both peeked inside. The baby was covered and the entire blanket was fill of poop. It was as though we'd wrapped a sheet of poop around her and then tucked her blanket around her for extra warmth.
The seat belt sign was alight. Neither of us felt comfortable pressing the call button for help, nor did we feel comfortable letting it be until it was safe to take the baby to the lavatory.
So we worked together to quickly and effectively change her diaper and clothes and to wrap the soiled clothes and the soiled diaper in the soiled blanket. My husband then tied up the blanket to ensure everything was tucked away, including the smell, and it couldn't roll open during the flight. We placed it under the seat in front of us, wedged between the legs of the chair and my husband's briefcase, and planned to get it off the plane and throw it away asap.
Thankfully the one captive passenger who had to watch this whole thing go down happened to be a father of 9 himself. He assured us again and again that "he's seen it all before."
The rest of the flight was fairly uneventful, but as we had only a short layover coming up, we started to rush getting ourselves organized for deplaning. When we were halfway to the next gate, my husband realized what we'd done and called it to my attention. In our hurry, we left the expertly wrapped, shitty blanket under the seat in front of us.
I would use this as an opportunity to apologize to American Airlines, but they evened the score on the return trip. We and American Airlines are square; but hubby and I will always feel bad about this one anyhow.
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