Airplanes and Tomato Juice

Over Christmas, we flew out to Michigan to visit the grandparents.  I was really worried about how the girls would do on the plane, but it turns out that they both did great.  Jocie got a little scared each time the plane started moving, and she whimpered a little bit during takeoff, but then she laid her head on my lap and within minutes was sleeping soundly.  Kayla the chatterbox, on the other hand, yapped the entire time with the exception of the second leg of our trip from Detroit to Marquette, when she slept leaning against the window:

We were originally supposed to arrive in Marquette at around 5 pm, but due to "mechanical errors", our flight from Dulles to Detroit was delayed and we missed our connecting flight and ended up getting into Marquette at 9:30, which is the only reason Kayla conked out on the plane like that.  From Marquette, it was still a two-hour car ride to George's parents house in Houghton.  Fortunately, the girls and I slept most of the car ride there.  By the time we got to bed it was close to midnight.  Kayla and Jocelyn were troopers!

Since our flight was delayed and we were stuck at Dulles airport for a few hours longer than we expected, we got some meal vouchers from Delta and I went a little overboard buying snacks for the girls to keep them occupied.  In addition to watching planes take off and land, and luggage trucks driving back and forth on the tarmac, the girls got to eat a lot of Auntie Annes and frozen yogurt.  (Anything to keep them happy, right?)

We were on a small jet with just two seats on each side, about twelve rows all together.  George and Kayla sat together on one side, while Jocie and I sat on the opposite side of the aisle.  George has an in-flight ritual of ordering tomato juice whenever the beverage cart rolls by.  Apparently it's something he's been doing for years and years.  I've never seen him drink tomato juice anywhere outside of an airplane.  When he got his tomato juice on the first leg of the flight, Kayla asked, "Daddy, what's that?"  He told her it was tomato juice and asked if she wanted to try some, fully expecting a BLECHHHH reaction.  Kayla took a sip and said, "I like it!"  George had to share the rest of his precious tomato juice.

On the way home, we flew from Marquette and this time picked up a connection in Minneapolis.  George and Kayla again shared a tomato juice.  From Minneapolis to DC, George finally decided to let Kayla get her own drink.  We had a really nice and friendly flight attendant (rare these days!) and when she rolled the cart down to our row, George said that he'd take two tomato juices.  Kayla added, "With ice. I like lotta ice."  As the attendant poured the juice, she said, "I've never served tomato juice to a little girl before."  Kayla just smiled.  After serving the tomato juice, the flight attendant turned to me and said, "Your little girl is so cute."   I said, "Thanks, she's really funny with that tomato juice though!"  The attendant said, "I can't stand the stuff.  I like tomatoes and ketchup but I hate tomato juice!"  "Me too!" I said.

The day after we came home, I made grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch.  Kayla was excited about the tomato soup.  She sat down at the table, took one slurp and told me, "Mommy, you didn't do a good job. I don't like the soup."  After I told her that Mommy worked really hard to open the can of Campbell's cook the tomato soup, Kayla took another spoonful and said, "Okay, I'll eat it."

My side of the family visited us in Virginia for New Year's, and each time we had a new pair of visitors, I asked Kayla to tell them what she likes to drink on the plane.  "Tomato juice!" she proudly answered.

All of this tomato juice talk is bringing back childhood memories of my dad forcing me to drink V8 out of a can.  GAG.  We are definitely going to keep this an airplane ritual.