[twitter]I really wish I wasn’t experienced with vomiting kids in cars, but I am.
The last time it happened, both kids hit my Hyundai Elantra hard in the course of 35 minutes.
Today, it happened again – in my wife’s Santa Fe. Zacharie hadn’t been feeling very well, and after recently recovering from strep throat, the bumps in the back of his throat, low grade fever, and lethargy told us it had come back.
He wasn’t up for breakfast, and other than a few nibbles of croissant and swigs of water, hadn’t had anything to eat all day when he announced from the back seat that he wasn’t feeling well.
I looked in the rear view mirror and could see the chipmunk cheeks starting to swell. I’d seen them before and immediately hit the brakes going from 60 to 0 as fast as I could.
Too late.
I felt the splash on my elbow. My son couldn’t hold it in. Luckily it was just water and a few bits of bread. When I finally pulled over and got him out, it was my wife’s purse that had seen the worst of it.
We changed him, ripped off the cover of his carseat, cleaned up the seats and purse as best we could and were grateful he hadn’t eaten much more before getting sick. There was no smell, it was just some splashes to deal with. Still, I reached in to the trunk and pulled the carton of apple juice out of it’s Ziploc bag and handed him the bag just in case there was a sequel.
45 minutes later there was. From Charlie.
At first we thought he was fooling. It’s not uncommon for a 4 yr old to parrot his older brother to get some of the attention, and while nothing was coming at first, we handed him the Ziploc bag just in case.
And I’m glad we did. Charlie had a full load of water, a muffin and blueberries, a donut, and more for breakfast. And it all came back into the bag.
The bag was genius. A Ziploc bag is big enough to catch the volume coming back, and it can be locked shut to prevent spilling, and smelling. If Charlie’s sick had been tossed in the car, we would be digging through my old removing vomit smell tips. Instead, we lucked out.
As soon as we got home, I went to the kitchen, grabbed a big Ziploc bag and tucked in to the back pouch of all our vehicles. I left a corner poking out so the kids can grab it – just in case.