Friday, October 15, 2010

Flashback, Thursday, October 7

Today, we headed back to Incirlik Air Force Base. Since we had to leave our B&B before breakfast, they actually packed us a lunch for the road and gave it to us the night before. I cannot say enough good things about this B&B. They were so wonderful to us. If you are ever heading to Germany and want to know the perfect place to stay, this is it!

However, all the goodness aside, we are pretty sure that the non-refrigerated milk they gave us for the road did not sit well with our boys.

Want proof? Well, I've got it.

Isaac took one sip and quickly told me he had no interest in drinking it. Not unlike our boys, Elijah thought it tasted just fine and moved from his first cup onto a second cup of the milk painlessly.

He then asked for a banana which was also in the food bag. I gave him one. As I handed him the piece of banana and he moved to put it into his mouth, a very strange expression crossed his big blue eyes. It was a look of fear.

I soon realized that his fear was for what was working its way back up from his stomach. Elijah threw up. This was the first time he has thrown up in his entire life other than normal baby burp-up stuff, and it was not just a little bit of throw up to initiate him into this new world. It was everything he had in his stomach and just straight regurgitated milk.

We were on some windy country German roads at the time, halfway to the the AFB. Talk about bad timing. Sour milk at the start of day-long travel is not something I would suggest anyone embraces for their journey.

JB and I spent the next twenty minutes attempting to clean up what had occurred in the backseat of our rental car. He took over duties on the car seat. I took over duties on the Elijah. Poor little guy was, at one point, standing on the side of the road completely naked and saying, "Cold. Cold. Cold" as I shoved my hand into suitcases hoping to retrieve something he could wear for the rest of the day. It was cold. And he was naked. But I had no choice. Where do you put a kid covered in throw-up while you try to clean him up.

(At this point Isaac began to ask me for a variety of items he "needed" at that exact moment. Foods. Toys. Etc. I told him, in no uncertain terms, that he had to wait for his brother to no longer be naked before I could worry about the toy car he had dropped.)

We also had to figure out where to put the soiled items that Elijah was wearing. We couldn't wash them before we left, obviously, and goodness knows we didn't want every single thing in the suitcase to smell the smell we were currently gagging on. So we used some of those plastic bags they gave us for our lunch and tied the stinky items up as tightly as possible and put them in a zipper on the outside of the suitcase.

We were finally off again. Yes the car seat still stunk to high heaven, but since we were checking it on anyways, we knew we only had to put up with it for a short bit of time. After that, the airplane luggage guys could gag on it while we boarded the plane.

I felt bad, but despite his requests, we refused to give the little E-man anything else to eat or drink until we were out of the car.

And, unfortunately, our drive wasn't without additional drama. Three times we encountered a sign that indicated the road we intended to take was closed. Thank goodness for Helga, our GPS best-friend. We ended up behind three different tractors that required long periods of standing still. It felt like one thing after another was delaying our trip. Thank goodness we are the type of people who give ourselves plenty of extra time. We had hoped to be at the airport by nine and we rolled in at ten.

After we got checked in and found out that there would be a seat for us on the plane, we prepared to do our normal waiting-for-who-knows-how-long-to-board routine. Apparently this is part of security measures for military flights. There is actually no "official" time given for when the plane will leave. You are told when to arrive for roll call. But that doesn't tell you anything about departure time. Instead, you listen to noises on hard-to-understand speakers and just wait until your flight is ready to go.

During this time we wandered across the street to the Ramstein AFB's equivalent of the BX. Holy gashmole. Cinnabon. Tons of restaurants. Tons of stores. And did I mention Cinnabon? (Next to chocolate, Cinnabon may be one of the most beautiful places ever created.) I was quickly reminded why people line up to come to Germany but have to be forced to Turkey. We got some snacks for the boys and some Cinnabon for me and then returned to the airport where thanks to a very good play room for the kids and an indoor playground, passed the next few hours rather painlessly.

No bulk head was available for this flight, but we did get a row with some incredible leg room. The flight was pretty full so we didn't have many choices. The best they could get us was a row of 3 with an adjacent aisle. JB took the aisle and I sat in between the boys. The idea was that, in exchange for taking the seat between them for the entire flight, JB would let me go to a Turkish/American women's dinner when we got home with Stebbins. Unfortunately, I didn't make it in time! No fair! (We forgot that Germany was an hour earlier than Turkey when we figured in my probability of being able to attend.)

The boys did fantastically. They both slept for an hour in their seats and were incredibly well-behaved. It was a seemless three hour flight back home.

While we left behind beautiful foliage and weather, Turkey is home. And we were glad to be back. We have been greeted by beautiful weather and so thankful that the last bits of a brutally hot summe are behind us.

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