Elise and the Technicolour Yawn

***This is not a post for the weak-stomached. Or if you happen to be eating at the moment. Seriously, if you are an easy-queasy, stop reading now. I mean it! Okay, don't say I didn't warn you...

I've come to realize that the pathway of parenthood is cobbled together with various rites of passage; getting peed or pooped on by your baby, going a whole day wearing a shirt that has spit-up down that back and either not realizing or not caring, putting the baby down somewhere and forgetting exactly where. Okay, that last one was a joke. But this weekend Fred and I notched another mark on our parenthood belt when we experienced Elise projectile vomiting while strapped into her car seat and we're miles from home.

We were leaving church Sunday, pulling our of our parking spot when it happened. Elise started to cough, and acting on "Mommy-instinct", I turned around and cupped my hands under Elise's mouth. This had happened before, a little cough, a bit of spit-up, and we're done. It was not to be this time, as Elise let loose with Old Faithful-like power, a geyser of spew that travelled all the way into the front of our car. It was as if Elise was going for the distance record in her age group of the Barf Olympics.

I am now wearing a coating of vomit on my arm and yelling at Fred to park the car somewhere. He wisely navigates the car towards the door of our church. Meanwhile Elise is continuously hurling, over and over again. I am doing my best to "catch" it in my hands, all the while instructing Fred to open one of the back doors so I can throw the puke out. Sort of like I'm bailing a sinking boat, but a whole lot more disgusting.

We unbuckle poor Elise from her car seat, and Fred runs her inside. I was left to try and clean up the carnage that had taken place in our car. It was miserable; I was fighting the urge to blow chunks myself, while shivering, covered in a pretty thick layer of ralph, in the 35 degree weather. About halfway through I ran out of baby wipes and had no way to clean up the rest of the mess. All in all, Elise had thrown-up nine times. Say it with me Ferris Bueller fans... Nine times. I guess she subscribes to the "better out than in" philosophy.

Fred brought Elise back, cleaned up to the best of his ability, and we strapped her back into the car seat. I was just hoping we could get home without further tossing-of-the-cookies. Because of the cold weather, we couldn't put down the windows, so we drove home breathing in the smell of sick.

I'm happy to say we drove the rest of the way home without incident, but I have learned my lesson. When Elise went down for her nap later that day, I immediately drove to the store to buy supplies for an "Emergency Clean-up Kit". I shall never be caught unprepared again.

Sorry if this post was a little gross for you to read. For some reason, vomit and all related words have always made me laugh. Given this opportunity to write about it and use all my various synonyms for up-chuck... well, I just couldn't pass that up.