Two Bladders at 37,000 Feet

I think I am feeling better emotionally enough to re-tell our flying adventures from yesterday. Every time I told the story yesterday (to Josh & my sister) I kept tearing up and feeling horrible.
So here I go. This is what happened to me and my kids while I flew home with them from spending a few days in Rhode Island for a family reunion (that blog will come later!)

Since our flight left at 7 am out of Boston, we decided to get a hotel room close to the Logan Airport instead of driving up super early from Providence. The night before we cleaned out the rental car, packed up all our bags, took baths/showers, and laid out our clothes for the plane the next day.

The alarm clock went off at 4:45 am and I was up and ready to go. The kids actually did good too, considering they were so excited about the hotel room that they did not go to sleep till after 10 pm.

We loaded up the car and headed off to the airport. I will say, this particular car rental agency was great. I returned the car to the parking garage, left the keys in the trunk, and texted the company with the location of the car. It was nice, since I could park right next to my terminal. We got checked in, no security problems, and bought a small breakfast next to our gate. Our first flight was from Boston to Chicago and that went perfectly.

We landed in Chicago with not too much time to do much else but wait by our gate and start boarding out next plane to Portland. After a bit of delay, we were finally on board and ready to leave.

Now, if you know my particular kids, you know that Levi has the world's smallest bladder. He also seems to lack the ability to hold his urine for longer than five minutes. And juice makes these problems 10x worse. I made the extreme mistake of getting my kids an Odwalla juice in Chicago.

So here we are, taxiing off the run-way, when Levi says he has to go to the bathroom. Well, I tell him he has to wait. We talk about the seat-belt sign and how it is not safe to use the bathroom while we are climbing our way up in the air. So he is fine with that. We wait a bit longer, get to a pretty steady and what seems like to be a decent enough altitude for the pilot to turn off the seat-belt sign. We wait, and wait. The sign is still on, and Levi is starting to get antsy. I finally just get up and let him go. We are about 5 rows from the back of the plane were the restrooms are. Unfortunately, the world's most unfriendly and unsympathetic fight attendant is there also.

She sees up heading to the bathroom and says "you cannot be out of our seats right now!" I respond "he needs to go to the bathroom." She rolls her eyes, waves her hand in dismissal and goes around the corner.

Levi starts freaking out. He really has to pee, but he says, over and over "I don't wanna die, mama!"

I push him toward the bathroom and reassure him it will be okay. Meanwhile, Nasty Attendant gets over the intercom and makes an announcement about staying in your seats and not using the restroom yet. We make it back fine, and of course, about one minute after we sit down, the seat belt light goes off, and people are free to move about the cabin.

Beverage service started about 20 minutes after that and, since we are close to the back of the plane, we have a while to wait. The beverage cart was about three rows away from us when we hit some turbulence. It was actually really bad. The attendants tried to continue, but the captain came over the intercom and instructed them to sit as well. Seat belt sign gets turned on again. We had been sitting through some pretty rough weather when Levi announced that he had to pee. Again.

This time I knew that we could not go, so I told him to hold it. He did, for about 15 minutes, then it got really bad. By this time, the turbulence had died down quite a bit, enough to where I was no longer scared. But the light was still one, and I knew that Nasty Attendant was back there. So, I did what any mother would do, I rang the call button.

Immediately, Nasty Attendant gets over the intercom and states "we are not supposed to get out of our seats, if this is an emergency, please ring your call button again." Well, I did. Here she comes, flustered and obviously annoyed. I told her that my son needed to pee and she about hit the roof. I responded to her rant by saying that my son is about to pee is pants, to which she responded: "I would rather him pee his pants than hit his head in the bathroom!" Then she left.

This was too much for Levi. He started bawling. "I don't wanna pee my pants! I can't do it! I can't hold it! I don't wanna pee my pants!" He was loud. Very loud.

So here we are, Levi laying in my lap, bawling, hurting because he has to pee, and both of us unbuckled. He kept yelling about how he can't hold it, but doesn't want to pee his pants. Finally, after about 5 minutes of this, a lady in front of me tells me she has a bottle if I want it. YES! So Levi can now add peeing in a bottle in a crowded airplane at 37,000 feet to is list of accomplishments.

He instantly calmed down. I, however, did not. I started crying. Just sad tears really, nothing too bad.

And, wouldn't you know, about 5 minutes later the flight attendants were able to resume beverage service; although the seat belt sign was still on.

During this whole time, Claire was asleep in the aisle seat. Her feet were hanging out a bit and then Nasty Attendant goes by and knocked them. This instantly woke Claire up and, not knowing where she was or what was going on, she started freaking out and she peed her pants.

So here comes pee-soaked Claire to sit on my lap so that I can attempt to calm her down. Now, she did not pee a lot, enough to get wet, but not enough to feel much relief. Now it is Claire's turn to sit on my lab, crying about how she needs to go pee and me telling her to just pee her pants. Lovely.

This is when I lost it. The full on bawling came on and my tears did not stop running. Claire cried on my lap for almost 10 minutes before another flight attendant came and asked me if we needed anything. Remember, the seat-belt sign is still on at this point! Anyway, she asked me if we needed water or anything, and I looked at her and said (looking, I am sure, pretty horrible) "she just needs to go to the bathroom!!"

Wouldn't you know it, she let us go. No annoying looks, no violent threats, just compassion. We quickly went and made it back to our seats without incident. Finally, a few minutes later, the seat belt sign went off and all was well.

Well, not ALL was well. I just sat there and cried. The front of my shirt was wet from my tears and my eyes were puffy and red. I just wanted to be home.

Eventually Nasty Attendant did come and apologize to me.

I still have a hard time believing that she told my kids to pee their pants. She would not be the one to sit for four hours in pee clothes, chaffing and rubbing and stinking her body. Who in their right mind WANTS to pee their pants? I am just glad to be done with that woman and that long day.