If you have spent any time around kids, then you know that kids have a tendency to get sick. A lot. Usually, kid illnesses fall into one of three categories: (1) the cold/flu; (2) some crazy contagious thingy (see pink eye, hand foot mouth disease, impetigo, etc.); or (3) a stomach bug. Anytime your kid is sick, it sucks, but there's something extra sucky about a stomach virus. When a very young kid has a stomach virus, things are bound to become a shit show - and I mean that in the most literal way possible. It's not the kid's fault of course. They can't help it and I'm sure the sudden urge to yak takes them by surprise too.
What I'm trying to say is that when you got kids, there will come a day when you will find yourself knee deep in yesterday's dinosaur chicken nuggets and there's nothing you can do about it! Short of putting a diaper around your kid's head, you will one day find yourself on your knees scrubbing an unidentifiable substance out of your carpet as you wonder how you went so wrong in your life that you ended up here. If you are lucky, these episodes will happen in your home where you can deal with things pretty efficiently. If you aren't so lucky, you will find yourself in the center ring of your very own freak show where everyone will get to experience the scary sights and smells.
That's a big lesson I've learned. Try as you might, you can't really plan for every contingency. Kids get sick. Sometimes at really inopportune moments. You just gotta roll with it and hopefully laugh about it later. You never do know how even your best laid plans will turn out and that's life!
Now, I think we've established that anything that can go wrong for me usually does, so let me tell you about my family's trip on the "Polar Express" or as I call it "The Train Ride To HELL." For those of you not familiar, the Polar Express is an actual train ride that families can book during Christmas. It's billed as festive and fun for the kids. Tickets go on sale months in advance and sell out in minutes. Well, I managed to score tickets for the train by breaking night and ordering them online the minute they went on sale. So far, so good, right?
The day of the ride, the kids were so excited, especially my youngest son Thing 1. I dressed the whole family in matching PJs. By God we were committing to this thing! We were gonna have some holly jolly Christmas fun dammit. We boarded the train and things were going fine for about the first 10 minutes. The train was packed with families. The seating on the train was booth style, so we arranged ourselves in a set of booths at the back of the train. At that time our youngest daughter was about 6 months old. The hubs was holding the baby while I settled our other three kids in for the 2 hour long train ride - remember that number: 2 hours.
It was like a freaking Norman Rockwell painting on that train. Children singing carols, dads playing patty cake with giggling infants, the entertainers on the train strolling up and down the aisle playing instruments! Out of nowhere, my youngest son stands up in the booth and announces "I feel sick." Before I even have time to react, he basically erupts like a tiny volcano. He has gone full Linda Blair exorcist style in the middle of a crowded train. We immediately panic, cause that's how our family rolls. I'm trying to catch the puke in whatever I have available. I grab one of the kid's Santa hats and hold it under my son's mouth. He is now shrieking AND puking and the train falls quiet as everyone turns to gawk at the shit show happening in our booth. Did I forget to tell you that the bathroom was extremely tiny and non functioning on this train? I yell to my husband, "get some paper towels and something to clean this up!!" Instead of doing that, though, my dear husband takes off running for his life up the aisle - with our 6 month old baby girl in his arms! Homeboy is just running! The hat is full, so I'm now desperately trying to catch the puke in my pocket book. Where is it all coming from? He's so freaking tiny!
"What the hell are you doing?" I hiss at my husband as he runs past me up the aisle for a second time. "I have the baby in my arms! What do you want me to do?" he yells over his shoulder at me as he disappears back down the aisle. "Give the baby to one of them!" I point to my useless older children who have moved seats and are trying to pretend that they don't know the rest of us. "They can't hold her!!" he yells back at me as he continues running up and down the aisle, Santa Clause pajamas flapping in the wind. Mind you, dear readers, my oldest daughter was 9 at the time - totally capable of holding her sister for a few minutes. "Give them the baby and help me" I say, except my voice has dropped several octaves and I sound like a 65 year old biker. By this point, my son's cute little elf pajamas are completely saturated, so I have no choice but to strip him. My son was 2 at the time and potty trained, so I didn't think to pack any spare clothes for him, and we still had about 1:45 minutes left on the train. It occurs to me that he might have to spend the rest of the time on the train buck naked.
Finally, Forrest Gump stops running and hands the baby to our oldest daughter. My sick son is shivering like a chihuahua, naked under his coat, but at least he's no longer yaking! Thank the sweet baby Jesus for that. When my husband returns, he has a roll of paper towels, some disinfectant and a garbage bag. Let me tell you that the clean up operation in that booth was....something that I've been trying to forget for over a year now, but can't. It was that traumatic, people! About the only stroke of luck we had was that the gift shop actually had one set of pajamas in my son's exact size available for sale. By the time we had the booth cleaned up and my son dressed, the damn train ride was nearly over. The kids looked like they'd been through war and my husband's legs no doubt were aching from the mini marathon he had just run. Needless to say, we did not book another train ride this year. Maybe we'll return one day....like with our grandchildren or something.
Finally, Forrest Gump stops running and hands the baby to our oldest daughter. My sick son is shivering like a chihuahua, naked under his coat, but at least he's no longer yaking! Thank the sweet baby Jesus for that. When my husband returns, he has a roll of paper towels, some disinfectant and a garbage bag. Let me tell you that the clean up operation in that booth was....something that I've been trying to forget for over a year now, but can't. It was that traumatic, people! About the only stroke of luck we had was that the gift shop actually had one set of pajamas in my son's exact size available for sale. By the time we had the booth cleaned up and my son dressed, the damn train ride was nearly over. The kids looked like they'd been through war and my husband's legs no doubt were aching from the mini marathon he had just run. Needless to say, we did not book another train ride this year. Maybe we'll return one day....like with our grandchildren or something.
You guys have no idea what's about to happen to you...
Do I need to blog about when my son was still a baby and I drove down to the shore to see my parents WITHOUT my cell phone and he started hurling while I was driving? And how I pulled over to clean him up and was so frazzled because there was puke everywhere that I left the liftgate open as I drove down a the street and my suitcase fell out? How thankfully Wawa still had a payphone and I called my parents COLLECTtelling them that I was covered in puke and would be there in 15-20 minutes and needed serious help? I may have only one, but I can still relate to this brilliant post.
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