As the parent of three boys ten years and under, I’ve had my share of cleaning up kid vomit. My eldest, who has a flair for the dramatic, tended to spew across carpet before even taking a single step toward the toilet. “I couldn’t help it,” he’d cry as I gasped at the pink tinged splash that now accented their white bedroom rug. I understand. Kids have delicate stomachs and the difference between hunger pangs and nausea is not quite apparent to them until they’re tweens.
Our Montana minivan is as much a barfing receptacle as our bedroom floors. And, what may appear to be a perfectly healthy child at the start of the trip could, in fact, metamorphose into a faucet of scrambled food. Unfortunately, there are really no ways to prevent nausea (other than to slip Gravol into their peanut butter sandwiches, but let’s not go there.) Thankfully, there is a way to prevent the worst part of throwing up - the clean up.
We always pack a barf pitcher. Known by most families as a juice pitcher. It has come in handy several times over the past few years when one of the kids has claimed a sore tummy. “I feel like I’m gonna barf,” is the preferred statement uttered by my kids at least once every couple of hours in the minivan. I will reach behind the drivers’ seat and grab the pitcher. “Use this if you need to throw up, ” I’ll calmly advise the sick one. The precaution provides peace of mind, even if the likelihood of the complainer filling it is close to zero.
Our past road trip through the Maritimes, I was beginning to think the pitcher was no longer a necessary item on our packing list. No one had actually thrown up in the van in five years. However, during the final leg of our drive out of the Maritimes and into Maine, the undulating curves of the road proved too much for our six year old.
He warned us of his predicament and, as usual, we pass along the clean pitcher and told him to use it if necessary. After six episodes of vomiting, the pitcher was half full and the car reeked like a bad hangover. When he finally had emptied his insides, we pulled over the side of the road and cleaned out the container with a bottle of water and some wipes.
The clean up took less than two minutes and our car didn’t suffer a speck of vomit. I’ll never question the value of a barf pitcher again.
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