Down for the Count

Ahh, that Robbie Burns. He knew what he was talking about when he spoke of the schemes of mice and men. Does anyone ever have their plans go exactly right? Anyone? Show of hands.

There are many simple and spectacular ways a family's scheduled events can go asunder, but nothing beats a stomach bug for efficiency.

* Warning! Stop reading here if you:
        - are emetophobic
        - are faint of heart
        - have a low "ick" tolerance
        - are not at least this tall 

We planned for a nice long weekend visiting the in-laws around the bay. The weather forecast was good, and we had visions of hikes and kayaks dancing in our heads. By Wednesday evening we had everything packed and ready to hit the road very early the next morning so we could be there by noon.

Our littlest one woke crying on Wednesday night, mere hours before we planned to leave. She didn't know what was wrong, but climbed into bed with mama and daddy to make it all better. Probably just a bad dream, we thought, until the leaned over the side of the bed and upchucked everything she ate in the past week. So we cleaned, and comforted, and got a bucket for the bedside just in time for her to yell "MOM! HOLD MY HAIR!" which I continued to do for the next six hours.

By morning she was bright as a button again, so although we were hours behind schedule, we pushed ahead with our plans. We arrived just before dark. We lost a day, but we'd make do with the time we had left.

By the middle of day two, the boy was complaining of an upset tummy. An hour later we were scrubbing the bathroom floor and he was quarantined to the room at the end of the hall. I started the washing machine while Hubby went to the store for ginger ale.

Around 8:00 I started to feel a little woozy. It's been a long day, I thought. My head ached. All that scrubbing, I said. Did I feel nauseated*, or was it just in my head, I wondered.

Glurk!

By the end of the weekend, the only ones left unscathed were Hubby and his dad.

Things I learned this weekend:

• Five year olds can throw up way more than you would think
• You might think the worst is over. It's not. Don't say it out loud.
• If your flight is cancelled and you decide to wait in the airport closet, don't talk to the guy selling maple syrup (This may have been a dream).

* Nauseated means feeling sick. Nauseous means sickening. If you tell me you are nauseous, I might laugh, and that wouldn't be nice.

Tuning In

Listening to the car radio with your little ones can be tricky business. Dangerous even. They sit back and take in every word while you furiously punch the buttons to protect their tiny ears from F-bombs. Then you pray that they do't go to school and share this new vocabulary.

The safest way to prevent musical mishaps is to bring along some parent-approved tunes on a CD or MP3 player. Fred Penner and The Wiggles will never steer you wrong. But once your kids reach grade school, they want to listen to real music.

Last week Hubby picked our seven year old up from his karate class, and of course the first thing Junior did was flick on the radio. They drove along, chatting and listening to some tunes. All was going well until one particular song - The Lazy Song by Bruno Mars. Now Hubby just recently had satellite radio installed in his car. The local radio station has an edited version of this song, and the offending sex word is removed. Not so in this version. Hubby frantically pushed at buttons, but too late, the damage was done.

When they arrived home, Hubby related the incident in all its sordid detail. What would happen? What if he asked what that word was? We'd have to have the talk a bit earlier that we thought. What if he went to school and talked about, you know, it?

Just then, Junior came strolling down the hallway, singing the dreaded song. We froze. We listened. Junior sang:

...meet a really nice girl, have some really nice eggs
And she's gonna sing out this is great

All that worrying washed away in fits of laughter. Hubby learned that kids are not so easily corrupted as he thought. He also learned to listen to the kids station when Junior is on board.