New Car Smell.

Hello Good People and Merry Christmas.

I was just making toasted sandwiches for the kids when my mind wandered to the subject of vomit.  I know that vomit and feces are common themes on this blog, but it is about young kids and parenting and the like so its understandable.   You see, last night we had a Christmas do with some friends that live on the other side of town.  We stayed the night so Juicy Tomato and I could have a few drinks. We had a great night, though there were a few incidents.

Firstly, every member of my family apart from me vomited.  The Menace vomited in his portacot, Moo in her bed, and Juicy Tomato in the toilet after cleaning up the kids vomit. So along with the cheese platter, dessert, and bottle of wine we also took a dose of gastro. It was confirmed in the morning when one of our friends kids vomited as well.

Secondly, The Menace repeatedly pushed over their one year old so he had to spend a good deal of time in Time Out.  He would stalk him.  It was deliberate and a little embarrassing. I’ve written before about his tendency to hit other children that are smaller than him and thought it was behind us.  Not so.

The other thing that happened was that I closed the back door on their other son’s fingers. I was heading out to help with the BBQ  and didn’t realise he was behind me. Ouch. Lucky they’re good friends of ours.  I said to The Tomato this morning that maybe we should get them a little something extra for Christmas.

Back to vomit though.  Last Wednesday the kids had a few hours with their Grandmother while I did a few jobs.  They’re allowed to have a happy meal once a fortnight so we stopped at the appropriate family restaurant on the way home.  No sooner had I passed the food to them in the back seat than The Menace let go with one of the biggest chunders that I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a few.  I pulled over.  The chunks ended up on the road and I mopped the liquid as best I could but there was still a lot in his car seat. We were twenty minutes from home.  I decided to make a run for it rather than do a thorough clean up, I only had a few wipes left anyway.  It was raining so I couldn’t open the windows to let the spew smell out so it got a little fruity in the car during the drive.  It didn’t bother Moo though, she demolished her nuggets and chips.  I must have acclimated to the odour as well because it wasn’t long before I was munching away on some large fries, complete with unwashed spew fingers.  I forgot to mention we were in the new car which we’ve had for a month or so.

We were nearly home when I realised that he had fallen asleep.   This presented me with a dilemma.  Should I wake him up and do a clean up as soon as we got home, or should I let him sleep and let the spew soak into the new car seats?  Did I want him tired as well as sick or just sick?  I went for sick.  It had stopped raining by the time we got home so I opened the car windows and sat on the front verandah reading the paper while he slept in his spew soaked car seat which I imagined was slowly dripping spew on to the the brand new back seats.  Then the idea came to me that if I unfastened the seat I could lift it out with him and the spew in it before the new car smell was gone forever.  So thats what I did, and he didn’t even wake up.  Only a few drops had reached the upholstery and this was cleaned up with a some wipes.  I did this while The Menace slept in the car seat which was on the verandah.  Job done.

He soon woke up and went straight into the bath.  The seat went on the grass out the back for a hose down.  He didn’t vomit again until last night.  The new car still smells new.  But just as I’ve written these last few sentences I’ve begun feeling a bit grumbly in the the tumbly.