With a little bit of summer.
These were taken at the cabin last summer.
I miss summer.
I was reminded of the cabin last night when I read this post on Theta Mom. I wrote a comment that turned into a post. It was way too long for a comment so I scrapped it and wrote something a little shorter.
Theta Mom was talking about a 1000 mile road trip she took with her husband and children. Most people who have kids, or rented them for a road trip, know exactly where this post is going just by reading the first sentence.
1000 miles in the car + kids = someone is going to puke in the car at some point.
I didn’t have to travel a thousand miles for my kid to puke in my car. I only had to go 35 miles for that to happen. Worse, it was all my fault.
It was a couple of years ago when I was still taking care of my mother. Every 4th of July my family meets at our cabin in western Wisconsin for the holiday weekend. We’ve done this since my parents bought the cabin in 1970.
I packed up the kids (we had an extra rental kid with us), the dog, and my mother into the car for what should have been an hour long trip. My car had a built in DVD player which we had never used before. All the kids were excited to watch TV in the car and I was sure this would keep the bickering down to a minimum.
Wrong.
Oh, the kids were fine, they sat quietly watching the movie. Mom and I bickered the whole way.
We started to bicker when I gave the kids some cupcakes to eat during the ride. 4th of July cupcakes with red, white and blue frosting on them. My mother was appalled that I would let my kids eat in the car. She obviously hadn’t bothered to ever look at the back seat of my car.
That was just the first thing we argued about. I don’t even remember the rest but it was one of those arguments where you know you can’t make it stop, you really want to make it stop, and you know if it doesn’t stop someone is getting out of the car while it is moving. My mother is the only one who has the ability to make me consider pushing someone out of a moving vehicle.
Luckily the kids all had headphones on.
There could have been a warning but I didn’t hear it.
Just as I was getting ready to kick my disabled mother out of my car, and leave her there until I drove back through after the weekend, I heard the sound that stopped the arguing cold.
Blaaaaahhhh
(I don’t really know how to type that sound)
Red, white and predominantly blue vomit had just been spewed all over the backseat of the car. A good portion of it landing on the rental kid.
At least I had an excuse to pull the car over and get out of the car.
Luckily we were driving through a small town at the time so all I had to do was pull into the parking lot of the bakery. How ironic is that?
My son and I went inside the bakery to try and find something to use to clean the mess. All this bakery had were those little tissue deals that they use to grab the baked good and shove it in a bag. The kind of tissues that have no absorbency whatsoever.
I didn’t care, I was distracted and my mother was speechless. In actuality she was just thinking about what she was going to say when I got back in the car. Remember, that it was my feeding the kids in the car that started our arguing in the first place.
We got everyone cleaned up as best we could and took off again. I mentioned to my mother that this little incident had just saved her life and I didn’t want to hear anymore about it. We drover the rest of the way in silence.
It was not the food that my daughter ate but the movie she was watching. From that moment on whenever we are in the car she has been instructed to stare out the window at the horizon. As long as she does that she is fine, put in a movie however and she pukes. Simple as that.
I was never able to get the stains nor the smell out of my car, so when my son did this last year I wasn’t too upset.
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Zero. That is the amount of warning Lauren would give me in the car before puking. Or anywhere for that matter pre puke. We learned thru the years that coloring and or any type of reading was a no no while driving. I miss those days. 🙂
.-= peedee´s last blog ..schitzo =-.
So thats what you need to do to get a new car…..I know what you mean about getting out the smell..it never goes away..and in the summer it just gets worse…Ugh..! love your pics and the frisk away from the dreary winter…cant wait for the spring/summer…Thanks for visiting..!
Same thing here!!! Only had the new van for a few days. Camping trip. Oldest in the back seat, watching a video. MAJOR hurl. Has happened to two other kids that were not mine – back seat, dvd, HURL. And they don’t WARN me…. wouldn’t you know if you were about to barf? And perhaps call out, “I’m gonna BLOW!” Nope! I’ve had to pull over MANY times from kids in the very back of my van – some were actually without a movie on, but most were. It was after the first barf that my oldest began to ride in the front seat. That hurl was a turning point for him… lucky!
See it’s the opposite with me it’s my dad. He drives me nuts and argues about everything. At least you had a good excuse to get out of the car. How weird that your daughter pukes when a movie comes on. Must have to do with motion or something.
Thank goodness for a little holiday puke, it saved her life. My grandmother was like that, I was just always doing everything wrong.
Sorry the road trip wasn’t too enjoyable! Best laid plans, right?!
Thanks for the summer pics, we’re having record snowfall in Dallas today so it gives me hope that the sun will return!
.-= Lynne´s last blog ..Wordless Wednesday – Valentine Fabric =-.
Peedee: Yep, we can’t color or really do anything in the car except talk, talk talk. She wants to go somewhere on an airplane and to tell you the truth I don’t think I could do it.
Robin: that is the only way I know how to get the smell out. I once lost a bottle of milk in the back seat of the car when my son was an infant/toddler. He must have thrown it just right. It stunk to high heaven (it was summer) and I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. The smell would go away when I used the A/C. When I decided to sell the car I cleaned it out from top to bottom and found it. I don’t think I was able to eat for a week.
Katherine: I do think sitting in the front makes motion sickness less likely. For daughter the seats in the old car were so low that she couldn’t see out the window even in her car seat. The car I have now rides much higher so she can see out of it. She hasn’t puked since.
Stacie: There is always one person who you shouldn’t take a road trip with. The motion sickness is caused by the brain not registering that you are moving. That’s why it is important to watch the horizon. I learned this the hard way when I lived in Seattle and took the ferry to work each day. I’d take the 45 minute ride and read the paper the whole way. I’d get to work and feel as if I had to puke. It would eventually go away until I got home that night and felt the same way. I took many pregnancy tests before I realized what was going on.
Heather: It did save her life I am sure. To be fair, my father had recently died and she was still grieving. Nothing she said made sense but she was calling me to come and help her 3-4 times a night. I was exhausted from not getting any sleep because she couldn’t sleep. Misery loves company.
Lynne: Dallas? It must be the apocalypse. Keep warm and stay off the roads.
.-= Jen´s last blog ..I’d Like To Interrupt Your Winter =-.
Dont worry, she’ll outgrow it. Lauren flies in the Navy now and its a non issue. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. =)
.-= peedee´s last blog ..schitzo =-.
HEY!!!! you put me on your blog roll! I’m honored. Thank you. 😉
.-= peedee´s last blog ..schitzo =-.
Peedee: That’s good to know. I can’t wait. It scares me when she rides in other people’s cars.
I am putting everyone on my blogroll who comments on my blog, it makes it much easier for me to visit them and comment back.
Yet another reason why TVs in the car are a bad idea. 🙂 I hope my boy is like me and can read and sleep in the car. I NEVER got car sick. Ever. Even on the most windy roads. Hubby can barely even look at a map without getting sick.
.-= megscole64´s last blog ..Where Are the Real Men? =-.
I think I would rather have root canal on the 4th, but that’s just me. The car looks scary, was your son hurt during this totaling of your car? My nephew did exactly this last Friday. He walked away just fine, the Impala did not.
.-= Buggys´s last blog ..No Toilet Paper! =-.
Oh I feel your pain. Nothing worse than being cooped up in a car fighting with your mom while your kids are puking in the back.
Yes, I think I’d be relived to see that back of that car too Lol!
.-= Menopausal New Mom´s last blog ..One Day At The Office…. =-.
Hi Jen, I feel your pain. I drove my Elderly parents to all their Drs appointments before they died. Dueling backseat drivers. And My Mom pooped in the back seat of my wife’s car. Now that’s a nightmare. “I need to go to the….. never mind.”
.-= Chris Casey´s last blog ..No Writer’s Block here! =-.
Oh my gosh, I don’t know what’s funnier you or the other bloggers comments especially the gal whose mom who pooped in the car….omg I’m so glad I visited tonight..I needed this laughter I mean I roaring..
Dorothy from grammology
grammology.com
.-= Dorothy Stahlnecker´s last blog ..Internet Dating soars: hot stares out, love-at-first-click in? =-.
Meg: I never got car sick until the ferry, but I never puked. My son is like that. We were in an earthquake once and he didn’t even notice it.
Buggys: He was okay, the next day he had a headache (mild concussion) and he had some bruising and a rash from the powder in the air bag. The worst part about the accident was that it happened 4 hours after he got his drivers license, http://www.redheadranting.com/my-babys-first-accident/ here is the original post.
MNM: I still think the puking was less worse than fighting with my mom. The clean up maybe not but the actual puking (because it didn’t land on me) wasn’t that bad.
Chris Casey: I can’t top that. I can come close however. My mother would get upset with me and crap herself in bed on purpose. Wait, that might be just as bad. No, it wasn’t in my car.
Dorothy: I’m glad you got a laugh out of everyone’s misery 😉
I can’t wait for summer! Those pictures are lovely. that’s a rough way to get a new car. I hope no one was hurt.
.-= AmyLK´s last blog ..Dig Out Day Again =-.
I spell it “BLARRRRGGH”
Wow…the engine blocks on those old Chevy’s were indestructible. Almost.
Amy: I can’t either, this has been one pain of a winter. No one was seriously hurt, the pride was, he had just procured his driver’s license four hours earlier, but he and the other driver were fine. Both cars were totaled.
Mike: It wasn’t an old Chevy it was less than two years old. The old Chevy is still running after 220K miles and being totaled out twice (my fault).
I didn’t know your cabin was in Wisconsin. Is it in northern Wisconsin?
My son puked once in my Honda Pilot. We were less than 3 miles from the house, pulling up to a stop light. We were talking, he got this look on his face and I said, ‘you look like you’re going to puke, are you ok?’ He said he was ok, I said ‘no you’re not’ and signaled to pull onto the gravel on the side of the road. Just as I was pulling onto the side of the road he threw up in his mouth. I finished pulling over, ran out of the car, opened his door and grabbed him and he started puking and just missed my shoes. He however did not miss the pocket on the door and the leather/pleather on the door. Thankfully he did miss the leather seats and the carpet. He finished puking on the gravel and then we drove back home. I got out the garden hose and hosed off the inside of the door and the door pocket. I can only imagine what the woman behind me thought. I looked up in my mirror before I signaled and she had this WTF? look on her face because I was signaling before the corner, which made no sense unless you were pulling onto the gravel like I was. To this day it’s a huge joke when we pass that spot on the road (which we do all the time because it’s on the way to Targhay). We usually do a hands over the head bow and say something about bowing to the ‘memorial’. It drive him nuts, but it never fails to make the rest of us laugh our asses off.
.-= Lola´s last blog ..Valentines Day Countdown… 3 days to go =-.
smell or no smell I would have been upset with an accident. Of course, you didn’t give any background on the accident so I’m sure something just came from nowhere and hit the car. Well I hope everyone was OK.
My wife is prone to car/motion sickness. Your advice about looking out the window is good. I even felt a little uneasy once when I was reading in the back of a car.
Puking on the tollway just happened with our twenty something daughter a few months ago. There was no where to pull over but she managed to get the window down. She was in the back seat. I felt sorry for the other travelers.
thanks for dropping a comment on ‘a few clowns short’
.-= lisleman´s last blog ..mother nature post or what hell was that =-.
Lola: No, it’s in Western Wisconsin, right over the MN border. Hop, skip and a jump from home but far enough to puke. Funny about your son and how you hail the area as a memorial of sorts. Leather interior is so much easier to clean than cloth seats.
Lisleman: Here is the post I wrote about the accident when it happened, http://www.redheadranting.com/my-babys-first-accident/ in a nutshell, the boy had just gotten his license four hours earlier. He was making a left on a green arrow, someone ran a red and hit him. My son was found to be at fault (he hit an off duty ambulance driver who must have certainly been a better driver than my son).
Staring out the window if one is prone to motion sickness is one of the most helpful tips I have learned in my years. So is rolling down the window for fresh air and in case the staring out the window doesn’t work.
Thanks for stopping by!
The last photo cracked me up! Puke in a car is the worst…you can’t get rid of it! GOD I hate puke!
Thanks so much for the link back! 😉
That last picture actually made me laugh with the fact that you were glad to get rid of the car! Glad to know nobody was hurt…and the puke thing? We are so over it!!!
Have a great weekend girl!
This is so horrid, (and hilarious) I nearly snorted my coffee. Oh Jen, it brought back so many of those memories on so many levels. My parents would pile me and my three sisters into a car and we would take off for “vacation”. Now keep in mind, all of us were 7 and under, me being the eldest.
It could be the car motion, it could be the fact that both of my parents smoked like chimneys and kept the windows rolled up so as not to muss Mom’s hairdo, but within 45 mintues, one or more of us puked. It was just a fact of life!
Loving my mother more than life, she was always the most difficult person I have ever encountered in my life and when she passed 4 years ago, I can honestly say I miss her but I don’t miss her ways. Thanks you for a brilliant piece!
.-= Linda Medrano´s last blog ..In Praise Of The Full Figured Man =-.
Jen, this may be one of your best posts ever. What parent can’t relate to the family trip interrupted by puking? But what makes this post priceless is the surprise ending. That was a pretty bad accident, judging by the photo. I hope nobody was seriously hurt. Other than your bank account, of course.
.-= MikeWJ at TooManyMornings´s last blog ..‘You Just Won Knucklehead’s Blog-Off 2010! Where Are You Going Now?’ — ‘I’m Going To Disneyl…No Wait! The Outback!’ =-.