A Bit of a Catch-22, or How My Morning Sucked...

This morning feels more like winter. Temps hovered around zero when I woke up. No early walk for me this morning.

The girls woke up and I got breakfast on the table. E was in her highchair and had eaten most of the cheerios strewn about the tray but left her milk untouched. Somewhat unusual for her normal routine. R and A ate their breakfast without complaint and A asked for another half of an english muffin with peanut butter. So, their appetites (and thus their stomachs) seemed fine. Can you guess where I'm going with this one?

I ate my breakfast and sent the girls off to get dressed. E wanted down from her chair so I closed the gate and sent her loose in the living room. She came back a while later begging for the bottle of milk still on her tray and I gave it to her but later found it on the floor still mostly full. I got dressed and then it was time to get R ready for the bus. Once she was on her way to school I got E dressed and proceeded to get everyone ready for the trek to drop A off to preschool. So far, a pretty typical morning, right?

Oh, and I should mention that it would seem I had a premonition of things to come. Call it motherly instinct (but, mostly I just didn't want to go out in the bitter cold and drag E in and out of preschool this morning...). I joked with Rick a few times about having him do the preschool drop-off this morning. I made it sound like a great idea - one that would be beneificial to him as well because his office was likely to be freezing cold if he got into work too early! (They have a heating duct issue that can't be fixed until spring and even when the heat has been on for a while the temps only get into the low 60s). He didn't fall for my feminine charm or my logical thinking however and left at his usual time - which meant I still had to do the drop-off. Damn. Guess I need to work on my wily and persuasive side.

The trip to school takes about 10 minutes. I got the kids bundled into the car, got my coffee, diaper bag (which I didn't *really* need for that quick trip - but again, call it a premonition...something made me decide to grab it on my way out the door), purse, and keys. We drive to school and it's not until I'm in the parking lot that I have the sinking realization that we left A's backpack at home. You know - the one with her lunch and her gymnastics clothes that she needs right after school so she can go to her gymnastics class. Oh crap. So, rather than drag E in and out of the building twice I decide to just turn right around and go home for the necessary items and then haul ass back to school. Given what happens next I'm not sure which was the wiser choice.

It is now 9:05 and we've been in the car for about 20 minutes. I drive home and grab the backpack, making a mental note to do a morning checklist before pulling out of the driveway. "Ok, it's Monday. What do we need? Lunch! Check. Gymnastics clothes! Check. Hairbrush! Check." You get the idea. Ugh. This is the second time in less than a week that I've left her lunch at home on a "lunch bunch" day. I get back in the car and we head to school. E has been making a few noises of protest but I figure she is just annoyed by being in the car for so long. Oh, and I should mention one other little piece of noteworthy information. E is in her car seat forward-facing for the first time. I decided it was time to move her car seat around now that she is 16-months-old and her head was getting close to being within an inch of the top of the car seat. So, it was time to do the big switch. I figured she'd enjoy the new view out the front of the car. I think she did.

Until she threw up.

Yeah. You knew that was coming, didn't you?

I was very close to school and wasn't sure what to do. I had two theories going on in my head. Either she has a bit of a bug (remember that still mostly full bottle of milk from breakfast...) which would mean that A and/or R and/or Rick and/or I might be the next in line for some stomach expulsions or she is reacting poorly to being in her car seat facing forward and had a touch of car sickness. After all, we had now been in the car for more than half an hour because of dear old mom who might forget her head at home if it wasn't so firmly attached. Either way, I'm feeling not very happy at that moment. The smell is permeating the car and I'm wondering whether I'll be dealing with a bug that is going to take one or more of us down for the count over the course of the next few days....or weeks even...or if I am dealing with a baby who is going to be throwing up on herself every time we get in the car for a while. A bit of a catch-22, wouldn't you say? I ended up calling the school and asking one of the teachers to come and meet A (and her errant backpack) at the parking lot for me so I could work on cleaning off E and get her back home pronto. I had decided to go with the car sickness theory until further puking (by E or someone else...) proved otherwise.

We have been home for a while now. I cleaned off the car seat as best I could (and was glad that I had the diaper bag along for the ride so I had wipes and cloth diapers handy for a quick clean-up before we started back home!). Some fool designed the car seat in such a way that I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get the cover off - it is one of those seats that does not require unthreading and rethreading of the straps to adjust the harness height - which seemed like a perk at the time...not so much now. I hosed the cover down as best I could, in situ, and then I discovered that there are far too many tight, hard-to-clean crevices in the damn seat for post-consumption shrapnel to imbed itself. Obviously, the person who designed the seat never tried cleaning it up after a child exploded all over it. Sigh...

E seems to be doing fine at the moment so the car sickness theory is still viable. I have not given her anything else to eat or drink and she is not begging to be fed so the stomach bug theory is also still viable. I have not yet received a call from R's or A's school asking to come pick up a sick kid. So, things are good on that front so far.

Which theory would you be hoping for?

Yeah, it's a tough call...