Diaper Flight

Luca, Elijah and I entered the airplane that would take us to meet their mommy in Chicago and I hoisted the carseat up, rendering both my boys invisible to me. After much cat wrangling, I found our row and discovered that our seats were the center three in a five seat row. Which meant one unlucky traveler on either side of us.

Next to Elijah was a guy clearly suffering from a massive hangover. He begged the flight attendant for aspirin while Eli discovered the joys of flicking the overhead light on and off. Next to Luca, a traveling salesman who was desperate to talk to anyone. Luckily, he got to spend two hours listening to a constant refrain of, “Airplane! Right there!” and “Thomas! Train!”

I hunkered down, realizing I was essentially trapped.

As we taxied, Elijah shouted, “Daddy! I have to pee pee!” I thanked my lucky foresight to clad Eli in diapers.

“Let it flow, buddy. Let. It. Flow.”

Eli thrust out his hips and made that face Steve Martin made when he played Ruprecht in the film “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.”

For the next two hours Luca slept and Eli watched DVDs, drank apple juice and urinated in his diaper constantly.

We landed at O’Hare after ten minutes of Luca shouting, “What’s Dat?” and me whispering, “The landing gear.”

Once the bell dinged twice, Eli unbuckled his seatbelt and stood to stretch. I looked over and gasped. Eli’s diaper must have reached saturation somewhere over Iowa. His seat was completely soaked.

And yet, I somehow found it logical to become angry with Eli.

“Look what you did!”

“You told me I could pee pee!”

“No I didn’t.” I was now a liar and a bad parent.

I sat him back down in his seat to cover the now stinking evidence. I had to plan our escape.

I waited until the plane had almost entirely emptied and then I made our move.

“Go! Go! Go!” I shouted and shoved them into the aisle. The boys were so excited by my urgency that they ran at top speed and I began to lose track of them.

“Freeze!” I shouted. They took this as a message to run faster.

Luckily, a flight attendant stepped into the aisle to run interference.

“Please stop them,” I pleaded.

“Oh my, look at those blue eyes,” She said as she scooped Luca up.

She made a face and said, “Oh, this one is wet.”

I grinned and guided my two adorable Ruprechts onto the jet bridge.