Fin has a senstive stomach, always has poor kid. And that's awful for me - I HATE puke. Give me the stinkiest, leakiest diapers on the planet and I'll take them any day over puke. Chalk it up to the fact that one's a normally occuring bodily function and one is sooo not. But Anyway, Fin's what I call a puker - one of those kids who can get sick at the drop of a hat. As such I have far more than a mama's share of stories where he's decorated various strollers, locals, and people with his talent. But there's one occassion that just stands out.
When Fin was little (and of course, there was no Dash of yet to speak) we used to go on long walks with the other mamas. In our zeal to work off those last of the baby lbs, we made our walks longer and longer. One of the favorite routes was to Whole Foods. It's almost 7 miles roundtrip and mostly street-side. I was always mindful to feed Fin before setting out on these journeys since not only did he have a sensitive stomach, he was (is) also very selective about what goes in it. So picture us at Whole foods, three mamas and three babies in strollers and since we had been walking, we were some hungry mamas. I was so surprised that Fin actually liked my sandwhich, that I didn't think about the fact that his tummy might have already been a tad on the full side.
I'm sure you get where this is going.
I should have also mentioned that Fin is also an amazingly quiet puker. Which explains why I didn't notice anything amiss until I heard the gasps of my friends and everyone else in viewing distance. It was like one of those gross out movies where you can totally tell there is a hose behind the puker's head. Only there was no hose. And seemingly no end in sight. I watched in horror for a few seconds, then worried, then wondered when the hell he was going to stop! When he finally seemed "done" I wheeled him (oh yeah, did I mention, he was IN THE STROLLER this whole time?!?!) into the ladies room. Triage. I grabbed him out of the stroller and stripped him, throwing the dirty clothes on the floor. Then I washed him thoroughly in the sink and changed a diaper midair (I know, mommies are the true Ninjas). Then I looked from my clean (and now very happy) baby to the stroller. It was a horror scene. I started throwing handfuls of water from the sink at the stroller. NOT HELPING. At this point, we've been in the bathroom damn near half an hour so one of the other mamas came in to check on us and had the good sense to take the happy baby away from his near hysterical mama. Now it was just me and the stroller. And the bathroom was already beginning to STINK.
Don't forget, I'm at BEST three very long miles from home. With a naked baby. And a DISGUSTING stroller.
So I started abusing their whole supply of paper towels along with some sink-soap and doing my best to at least get the dang thing wiped down...and I the whole time I can HEAR people talking outside the door about how there's this crazy lady in the bathroom trying to hose vomit off of her stroller.
Knowing that I'm beat, I wheel out the vomit-mobile which is now soaking wet and still reeking (why oh WHY does kids puke smell so much worse than adult puke?). And just when I'm ready to live the nightmare of carrying naked Fin while pushing the sopping stroller the long way home, my friend Monika comes to the rescue. Her hubs is home and can come pick us up and drive us to our home. Touched by another mamma's consideration (not to mention the fact that she was willing to let that STINK anywhere NEAR her car), I made it home. Where it took me three rounds with the hose and carpet cleaner and lysol to get the stroller to "passable".
And that is my worst story of public embarassement (at least involving bodily functions)... at least so far.
1 comment:
OH man. That sounds just awful. I'm such a phobic about puke (why YES, I am a great mother AND nurse!) I might have been tempted to leave the kid there.
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