Popping my Puking Cherry

I've been hiding a secret from all of you.  One I was too afraid to mention for fear of massive repercussions.  Until this past Saturday, I had gone 3 1/2 years of motherhood without a single puking incident.

Sure we had our fair share of projectile breast milk and formula from each of the girls when they were babies, but that was it.  And that's hardly a big deal in my book.  I knew one day the stomach flu or something similar would eventually end up in our lives, but I rode out the puke-free wave as long as I could.{I also think I got to live without puke for so long since I had more than my fair share during my pregnancies}

Enter Saturday.  The day of my sister's wedding rehearsal and dinner.  Skip, the girls, and I are all dressed up and ON TIME.  Something I used to pride myself on and something that rarely happens with two kids.  I had a huge diaper bag filled with everything I thought we'd need.  We hit the road and begin our hours drive. 

Charlie was pretty screamy the whole time, but that's just about par for the course these days.  Girl has never really been a fan of the car.  So we just crank up the music a little bit and deal as usual.

In no time at all we were pulling into the wedding venue, still on time! Skip parked the car and I opened up Charlie's door to get her out.  And then it happened.  My poor sweet baby girl projectile vomited everywhere.  On her, the car seat, the seat behind her, me, her paci.  It was awesome.  And did I tell you about the part that she was throwing up fruit and veggie yogurt melts?  That were red.  So it looked like she was puking up blood.  Even more awesome.

As I stood there with puke on my hands I realized that I: A:only had a few wipes with me, and B: did not bring a change of clothes for either girl.  Total Mom Fail.

So I quick grabbed her out of the seat and with the few wipes I had and a bathroom run, I was able to clean both of us off enough to make it through the rehearsal and dinner with only a faint smell of baby puke.

But during all this time a discussion started making its way between Skip and I and my family.  Charlie was not sick and puked, she had no fever and was totally happy the whole time. So we realized it must have been motion sickness  that caused her to throw up.  Now sure, it was an hour's drive, but it was mostly highway and barely any turns.  So if she puked on this trip, the likely hood that it would happen again was pretty high.

So the puking combined with the fact that the girl screams in the car pretty much every time we put her into it, we decided to front face her that day.

Now I'm not ignorant.  I know the research that rear-facing for up to two years is what is encouraged these days.  Emmy was rear-facing until 22 months, and I had planned on doing the same for Charlie.  And yes, I would much rather clean up kid puke every day than have something horrific happen to my kid...trust me when I say I really struggled with this decision.  But Skip, my mom, and I all came to the conclusion that front facing would be better overall.  The risk of her choking on vomit was not a safe one either, and it's getting to the point where her screaming in the car is not safe for me as a driver either. 

So at just over a year and almost 22 lbs, my Charlie bear is now forward facing.  And girl is loving it!  We have had no more puking or screaming incidents yet {though I'm sure there will still be times she screams} and everyone is much happier.  And don't worry, I bought three changes of clothes to the wedding, just in case;-)