The Barfing Beckers

So why would I put a picture of a lovely birthday cake in a post that is, presumably, about barfing?  It's relevant, I assure you.  You see, Paul's birthday party was cancelled due to the stomach bug that went through our house (scroll through some of the older posts to hear part of the story).  Everyone except me got it, and boy was it nasty!  We spent an entire month dealing with it, one after another.  Paul finally got his party rescheduled, although it seemed like we might have to cancel it again.  You see, on the Sunday before his scheduled party, we were at our annual church picnic.  Matt was pushing little Renee on the swings when she barfed all over herself.  There's nothing like having three kids come flying down the hill yelling to me "Mom!  Daddy needs you now! Renee barfed all over the swings!"  We got her cleaned up as best we could and Matt made a hasty retreat from the picnic with her.

 

She seemed fine after that.  Until Wednesday.  We were out grocery shopping, and were running late, as we needed to be at church by 6 and it was nearing 5:30.  So we stopped at the drive thru at McDonalds for a better-than-nothing quick dinner.  In between placing our order and picking up our food, Renee (again) barfed all over the backseat of the van.  We got her home and cleaned her (and the van) up.  Again, she seemed fine, so I let her eat her McNuggets, though I did keep her home from church that night.

Everything seemed fine on Thursday morning, the day of the party.  The kids were excited, and preparations went off without a hitch.  All the boys had a terrific time, right up until the very end.  One boy took a hit to the head during a football game.  We brought him in and put ice on his head, and he told me he thought he needed to throw up.  This not being my child, I wasn't sure if he really meant it, or if he was just upset from getting hit, and I didn't want to embarrass him in front of the other boys at the party.  And besides, his mother was due to arrive any minute.  If I hadn't learned this lesson by then, you can be sure I've learned it now: when a kid says he's gonna throw up, believe him!  As soon as the poor boy's mom came in and went over to him, he lost his lunch in a very spectacular fashion all over the living room.  The other mom and I both stood there trying to catch it in our hands.  Matt just couldn't help himself and had to laugh at the sight of it all.  We have enough kids and have been through enough that we've seen pretty much everything, and really, you do just have to laugh at stuff like this sometimes.  The party was over anyways, so all the kids went home and good old Matt cleaned up the mess.

If only that was the end of our tale.  On our way to our homeschool classes this afternoon, Elena started complaining she wasn't feeling well and didn't want to go.  I figured she was just trying to get out of going to class because she wanted to play out on the playground with her friends, and besides, we were already almost there.  I sent all the kids in to their first class.  Halfway through, another mom came out to tell me that my daughter was not feeling well in her ballet class.  Poor Elena was indeed lying curled up on the floor, not looking well at all.  Not wanting yet another catastrophic barfing incident, I hustled her out to the van.  I went back in to make quick arrangements to have some friends look after and bring home the other three children, and got Elena and Renee strapped in to their seats to go home.

Now, unfortunate experiences in the past have led me to always have a small trash can handy in the van in case of carsickness (there's a whole 'nother set of stories there!)  The old trash can I'd had in there was, umm, filled during the Joe-barfing-at-gymnastics incident just a few weeks ago, and I had to throw out the whole can.  Just a few days ago, I bought a brand new trash can at the dollar store,  lined it with several trash bags, and placed it in the van.  Before taking off, I handed the can to Elena.  And it's a good thing, as she needed it before we were halfway home.  For probably the first time in Becker history, a child throwing up in a moving vehicle managed to get it all in the bucket!  And of course, there's nothing like flying down the freeway to the sound of a child throwing up in the back seat.  Thanks to my foresight, when we pulled into the driveway, I only had to pull out the first "full" bag, toss it out, and put the trash can back in it's place.

Poor baby is home on the couch being taken care of now.  Let's hope this is the last chapter in the Tale of the Barfing Beckers.