So yesterday morning I was bound and determined to send my child to daycare all nice and squeaky clean, rather than scruffy and smelling faintly of urine. Yes, I’m that nearly middle-aged mother who gives in and lets her child, her only child, the one that took a lifetime to beget and bear, have a cup of milk or juice in the evening. So it should be little surprise to find a small child at the side of the bed, each and every morning, oh, around 3 a.m., saying, “I’m all wet.” And the sleepy mother dutifully changes the diaper, or mutters muffled curses if she finds that she’d put him to bed in a pull-up, because pull-ups? Are supposed to be training pants. They just don’t hold that much. Wet jammies and bed linens are pretty much guaranteed, if the child is put to bed in a pull-up.
Oh yes. The race car bed? Well. It works until the “I’m all wet” announcement. After the diaper change, I let him snuggle up in my bed. I tried returning him to the race car once, but lifting a 46lb boy in my cloudy 3 a.m. state, carrying him down the hall and into his room while not tripping on anything en route, and depositing him once more in his own, and possibly now damp, bed, is just too much effort. So he gets to sleep with me. And three hours later, instead of letting him sleep, I give him a shower and dress him in his soft and cozy and freshly washed superman sweats. See, I make good on my promises.
Half way to daycare, he gets a funny look on his face, clutches his stomach, and spews forth the contents. One entire freshly consumed cup of milk. All over him. All over the car. All over everything. I whipped a U-ey. (It’s one of those things you hear people say, but when it comes time to spell it, well…) …So really, all I did was make a U-turn, pull in to a parking lot, leap out of the car and attend to the matter. I sopped up what I could with the blankies on hand, and was half tempted to go ahead and drop him off at daycare and let the babysitter clean him up and change his clothes. Bad mother. Bad, bad mother. But instead we went home. Good mother. The Superman sweatshirt and pants lasted all of twenty minutes. Back in the wash for another day.
I cleaned out the car as best I could with 409 and Febreze, and we set out again. He seemed to be feeling well. He probably just drank the milk way too fast, as he does, then had to burp, as he does, and got caught in a gag reflex. At least he’s not actually sick. That would just be icing on the cake. In spite of waking up extra early to arrive to daycare and work on time and in good hygiene, we arrive very very late, smelling of vomited sour milk. Nice.
I kept the windows down for the drive, hoping the air would help. It didn’t. I left the windows cracked open all day, hoping it would help. It didn’t. That’s the end of the new car smell around here. The evening was spent with the Bissell, in a valiant attempt to rid the car of vomited sour milk. The resale value has plummeted dramatically. At least the car seat could be disassembled so I could wash the seat cover. But what to do about the seat belts? How can I get the vomited sour milk out of them? I’m at a loss. Keep dousing them with Febreze until they are saturated and the Febreze wins?
Yes, as long as the smell of vomited sour milk wafts through the air as we journey in our trusty minivan, the memory of this day will live on. And on.
