Family Trip, Part 2

Let's talk about puke.

No, it's not a polite topic. And I wasn't very polite as Jeff and I spent an hour in a fastfood restaurant parking lot cleaning throw-up out of our car.

I'm not super-strict about what Biscuit eats. He gets snacks and has ice cream every once in a while. He had a lollipop just yesterday ... right before dinner!

But while we were on our family trip, my little man ate the equivalent of a month's worth of junk food. He had store-bought cookies. He had Kool-Aid. He had crackers and chips. Any of these things in small amounts is fine, but Biscuit just isn't used to tons of that stuff in his belly. And being the sneaky 3-year-old that he is, he would ask my Mama for a cookie, and she'd give him one. Then he'd ask his aunt for a cookie, and she'd give him one. Then he'd ask his oldest cousin for a cookie, and she'd give him one.

And all of that led to a spewing event at the halfway point of our trip home from the mountains.

We pulled into the restaurant to get some ice cream or a milkshake, but just as we rounded the back of the building, it started.

We swerved into a parking spot, and I jumped out and ran around the car to get Biscuit. I fumbled with his car seat straps and finally got them unbuckled. I grabbed him under his arms and pulled him out of the backseat. He was still throwing up as I dragged him into the parking lot.

As soon as his feet hit the pavement, though, he was done (of COURSE he was). He looked up at me and said in a quiet voice, "Mom, I slobbered on your shirt ... and in the car ... and on my clothes."

"It's okay, baby," I said. "We'll get everything cleaned up. You don't worry about a thing."

Luckily, I still keep a box of wipes in the car. By the time we were done with the cleanup, we had used half the box. I grabbed a change of clothes from Biscuit's suitcase, and we stripped him down, right there in the parking lot. Biscuit didn't seem to mind. He was just happy to have clean clothes on.

We had his DVD player in the car, so I set him up in the front passenger seat to watch a movie.

Then the moment of truth ... I went to the back door and looked inside the car.

Honestly, when I leaned into the car, I thought I might add to the mess Biscuit had made. And that's unusual for me, especially after working at the hospital and seeing that kind of stuff on a daily basis.

But it was EVERYWHERE!!!

It was all over the carseat, the seat protector that goes under the car seat, the back seat of the car, the side of my pocketbook, the top and inside of the camera bag (a really nice $60 camera bag) and the bag that holds Biscuit's DVD player and movies.

Seeing as we had handled a similar situation in May, we were able to come up with a game plan pretty quickly.

I took extra paper goods in case we needed them at our rental house, so I dug out a large trash bag. We removed the cover from Biscuit's car seat and shoved it in the bag. We added his clothes, the DVD player bag and a few other things and tied it up. We took the car seat out of the car and did our best to clean it in the parking lot.

The car seat has nooks and crannies like you wouldn't believe. And there are straps and fasteners that are affixed to the bottom of the seat that come through in assorted slits and slots. Well, when something that's mostly liquid pours over all those slits and slots, it leaks through. I was using toothpicks wrapped in baby wipes to clean as best I could. It might sound like I was being too fussy with it, but imagine having to deal with the smell while you were shut up in the car for another hour and a half.

Jeff and I spied a superstore across the street. We looked at each other, and for a moment, we considered ditching the vomit-covered car seat in the restaurant's dumpster and going to buy a new one. The $150 price tag was the only thing that stood in the way.

After we got back on the road, Biscuit started thinking about everything that had happened.

"Mom, what was that stuff that came out of my mouth?" Biscuit asked.

"That was throw-up," I said.

"What did throw-up come out of my mouth?" Biscuit asked.

"Well, you know how you put food in your mouth and then it goes to your belly?" I said. "Well sometimes your belly doesn't like the food you put in the there. So your belly makes the food come right back out your mouth. You can also throw up when you're sick. But what happened to you today was because of stuff you ate."

"Oh, okay," Biscuit said. And that was all he needed to know.

The good news is that this incident was the only bad thing that happened on our trip. I'll share more (better) stories and photos about our trip soon.

In the meantime, here's a picture of Biscuit on the deck at our rental house: