Rough Start

If you do not handle talk of bodily functions well, you should probably skip today's post.

Monday morning was not a good time for Aiden and I. Aiden had diarrhea a couple times on Sunday, which is very unusual for him, but I attributed it to all the juice he drank at the Ramby's on Saturday evening. I rethought that when he began to projectile vomit all over the back seat of my car on the ride onto the island Monday morning.

Aiden started coughing, so I looked in my rear view mirror to check on him. Then the fountain began. I was in the middle lane in halted morning rush hour traffic. The cars couldn't get out of my way fast enough. I pulled over in front of Sonic, which if you don't know the island, is only 2 blocks after the end of I-45. He continued to spew milk during the entire ride from the center lane to the side road, all the while I'm forcefully whispering, "Oh no, oh no, oh no..."

He finally stopped as I was getting out of the car. I immediately jumped in the back seat and assessed the damage. Aiden was covered from chin to knees. His toy train and airplane were lost in the mess. It had sprayed over the edge of his car seat onto the backpack we bring to daycare with his nap time gear and an extra change of clothes (which we needed at the moment). It was dripping down the back of the center console onto my sun screens.

My first thought was how the hell am I going to clean this up? I'm in my car! I didn't even have the diaper bag. I grabbed the blanket we leave in the car and tried to wipe Aiden and the seat straps up the best I could. I took him out of the seat, stripped him of all his clothes and brought him to the trunk of the car to wipe him down with the baby wipes I thankfully keep in the car. After he was as clean as he was going to get at the moment, I pulled the extra set of clothes out of the back pack. I was happy to see they were dry. I don't know why it was so important to me to dress him. I guess just doing the familiar thing. I set him in the passenger seat, desperately hoping he didn't have anything left to cover the front of the car as well.

I tried to wipe up the car seat with the baby wipes, since I had to put Aiden back in the thing to get him home. My attempts were futile. I was barely getting anything off the seat. I finally decided to clean the straps the best I could and then lay another blanket on the seat before setting Aiden back in it.

After he was strapped in, I called the daycare to notify them Aiden would not be in that day. Then I phoned Travis to see if there was any chance he would be able to come home early. I had a HUGE assay to do at work. If I postponed it, I would have to throw away everything I had done already. Not only was that not cost effective, it was a waste of my time. Travis said he would check with his boss to see when he could get off and I started the trek back home.

Travis sent me a text saying he would be off at lunch. I was plenty fine with that because every hour before his normal time off work would be better for me.

About half way home, Aiden started coughing again and saying "ow." I looked fearfully in the rear view mirror to see all color was gone from Aiden's face and lips. Then a little more come up. By this point it was all water, no chunks. Thankfully? I'm not really sure if that is better or worse. All I could do was tell him we would be home soon.

When we got home, I left all the windows rolled down. No sense allowing that smell to concentrate before I had to climb in after it. I gave Aiden a quick bath, then set him in front of the TV with Mr. Lion, his puppy pillow and a blanket. He sat there and watched Elmo in Grouchland one and a half times. He was content to sit and not move for that much time.

I threw out what was left of the milk he had drank that morning. It didn't expire for another week, but there wasn't much left and I wasn't taking any chances.

I went back out to the car to tackle my next task. I pulled the car seat out and set it in the driveway. That way anything that fell off during the cleaning would not land in my car. I took the cover off for the first time ever and threw it in the wash, along with everything else that had been coated. I thought about wiping it down with paper towels and some sort of cleaner, but quickly threw that idea out the window when I thought of the hose. It was the best way to get "things" out of the cracks and crevasses. Next in line for the hose were Aiden's toys and my sun screens.

I need to point out that I am eternally grateful (I have been watching a little too much Toy Story lately) for the car seat protector we have used since Aiden was born. We originally bought it to prevent his car seat from leaving permanent dents in the leather. But now I know it has another purpose: vomit catcher. I didn't have to clean any vomit off the seats of my car, except for the few blotches that had fallen off Aiden when I pulled him out.

I can only imagine what my face looked like through all of this. I'm sure it was the same face I wore the entire ride back from Galveston with partially digested milk coating my back seat.

I cleaned the house while Aiden relaxed. After 30 minutes, he started saying he was hungry. I was really nervous about giving him anything. I gave him 2 ounces of water and one animal cracker. When that stayed down for 15 minutes, I offered him some more. Another 30 minutes after he had finished his snack, he started complaining about being hungry again. I made him some cinnamon toast, which he happily scarfed down and asked for more. I took my time making him a second slice, trying to give his stomach a chance to come to terms with all this food. He ate that entire slice as well, but was sated.

Until an hour later when he started saying, "Eat? Eat? Eat?" Most of what comes out of his mouth is in question form. I was trying to decide what would be easiest on his stomach. No dairy. Nothing remotely spicy. No acidic tomato based anything. Chicken noodle soup it is! Although I drained most of the broth out and it became chicken and noodles with a side of saltines. I gave him some Pedialyte to drink. He scarfed all that down as well.

I was a nervous wreck by this point. I kept thinking I was giving him too much food. But he was hungry. And nothing had come back up yet.

I put Aiden down for his nap at noon, following the same guidelines I used on Sunday. He fell asleep within 15 minutes. Travis arrived shortly thereafter for the swap. He used his "free time" during Aiden's nap to mow the front lawn, since it's been weeks since we've attended the grass. I went to work for five hours, making it home in time to finish dinner with Travis around 6:45 pm. Travis reported that Aiden hadn't gotten sick once under his watch.

It was a long day. Aiden went back to daycare on Tuesday with no illness to report. Phew.