Waiting for his head to spin around

There are lots of posts I could make about our time in New York. Short, funny, cute, posts about my delightful children and my amusing family and the interesting things we do. But instead I'm going to post this one about our drive home.

Just before we left, and I mean just as we were walking out the door, bags in hand, Nick said "I peed in my pull-up." I knew we had to change his pull-up because you don't start a long car ride with a wet pull up. Halfway to the bathroom Linda and Steve noticed a puddle on the floor. "Is this pee?" they asked. I looked at Nick's pants, and sure enough, they were soaking wet. His socks, and sneakers - soaking wet. His pull-up... surprisingly dry. I figured it must have been on crooked. "Where is your penis?" I must have muttered. As soon as I pulled his pull-up off, Nick shouted "Mom! I found my penis!" Hooray.

So we changed pants, soscks, and I wedged his feet back into his soaking sneakers, the only shoes he had.

The drive began well. The boys fell asleep at first, then we stopped at McDonalds and got a happy meal and a greasy bad-for-me burger for me. Steve drove as I sat in the back, alternately dozing off and monitoring Nate's french fry intake. At one point, as we neared our exit off the pike onto 495, Steve asked me to pass him some toll money, which I did.

Almost as soon as I sat back down I head the sound... like coughing, like burping, but... worse. Much, much worse. Puke. Nick was throwing up.

Perhaps it is a testament to my misplaced prioroties that my first move was to throw the swede fur-lined jacket my mother gave me into the very back seat, as far away from Nick as I could get it. Then... then there was nothing to do. We were driving. Nick was strapped in his seat, so he couldn't even lean over to avoid getting messy. We had no towels, only a couple of burp cloths - both packed away - and a few paper napkins. Steve paid the toll and told us he'd pull over as soon as he could, but since it was foggy and rainy he didn't want to just pull over on the side of the road... "I'm sick!" shouted Nick. "I need to go to the doctor!"

The smell was... pretty bad. And Steve is one of these people who can't change a diaper without throwing up. So there he was, driving the car, dry heaving, his hand clamped over his mouth. Nate was crying. Nick was covered in throw up. His car seat was covered in throw up. I was frantically pulling out dirty laundry to use to blot up the mess.

When Steve pulled over, what seemed about five hours later, we opened the door to let in some air. I stood NIck up in the car, and... OK, I'll spare you the clean-up details. I'll just say that poor Nick was basically standing naked in the freezing rain, that puke got everywhere, and that I'm not sure if I'm ever going to be able to get the car seat clean. Perhaps I should just get a new one?

For the record, I don't think Nick is sick. I think it's a combination of car turbulence and McDonalds. An old fashioned case of motion sickness. But I should also make perfectly clear that I was caught completely unaware, and the rest of my day was immediately ruined. I'm still cleaning up from thei one event. How can this be? Why is this? Why can't we just have one week where the kids are healthy and no one throws up or has to go to the emergency room?