Gastroenteritis

I haven't written for a long time. Basically I have had to work through the trauma of our journey to the US before I could write about it.. I hope that this entry will provide me with some closure.

The first thing I should say is that I think travelling alone with two children is actually possible. People are kind, helpful and go out of their way to assist you. The lady on the check in desk even gave us a special 'fastpass' sticker so that we didn't have to queue at security. However, travelling with children who have vomiting and diarrhoea is not quite so much of a breeze.

I knew that Barney wasn't 100% - I'd packed 8 nappies and a number of changes of clothes, but since he'd got through the vomiting stage and was quite happy, I wasn't too daunted. It all started to go wrong when Evie suddenly announced that her tummy felt sore and promptly threw up all over the seats we were passing... They had to bring on the ground crew to change the seats and clear up - thereby holding up the plane for about 10 minutes before we even began. Evie then continued to vomit at regular intervals thoughout the flight (mostly in the toilet thank goodness - we were in there pretty regularly for Barney's nappy changes which I rationed to make the nappies last out). When she wasn't sleeping she was awake and feeling awful. Barney was happy but smelly.

Things were made a bit more difficult by the presence of Clive. He was the newest addition to our cosy grouping, taking up the window seat in our bank of three. The poor man was obviously less than pleased to be sitting with a family (particularly when he was labouring under the misapprehension that Barney's basinet had taken the place of his dinner tray and that he would have to eat his meals on his lap) and didn't speak to us for a good hour or so. He eventually warmed up when he realised that he did have somewhere to put his drink and I then spent the rest of the flight trying to preserve his goodwill by spending a lot of time in the toilet to prevent him being exposed to the vomit and/or diarrhoea.

Suffice it to say that my low points were:
1. Throwing up myself in the toilet whilst trying to hold Barney and answer Evie's question about what I was doing.

2. Suddenly realising that the buggy hadn't arrived when we reached LA and I had two children and all our luggage in one big pile. I did allow myself some tears at this point.

As ever, all things work to the good and:

1. The buggy did arrive, eventually.
2.We all survived and had a great holiday (having passed the bug on to all our friends and family and probably Clive).
3. I will always enjoy plane journeys where there are other adults and I can attend the toilet alone.