Surviving vomit--in the car

It was coming up on 9:30 at night. It was dark and a storm was coming in. We were driving around town looking at houses, just enjoying the moment. When suddenly, seemingly out of no where, my daughter started to hurl. Great big chunks of quesadilla poured out. Emergency mode set in. We knew if we did not get pulled over, that it would be a worse mess than we already had. None of us wanted to drive home with that foul stench about us. We would be a sitting duck for more throw up. The problem was, we were in a residential neighborhood--no place to pull over. My husband sped up a bit, but not too much. The wind was whipping around us--we had just passed a flag pole swishing to and fro. We knew a good situation was turning bad--fast.

I turned into Survivor Mom mode. Instantly, I grabbed a blanket and had my daughter continue her hurls into it. The car seat was already a loss, but I could not bear to loose my floorboard too.

After a few moments of peril, we find a car lot. There is a light in the parking lot and using our parenting sense, we park under it--knowing we need all the light we can get on this dark night. We have to work fast. Not only are we trying to keep the smell form overpowering the van, we need to work ahead of the approaching storm. This was the time when parents become soldiers. This was the time to survive!

Wipeys? check Extra napkins? check The first step to surviving the vomit in the car scenario is to have lots of material to clean up the slime. That stuff will just ooze its way into the smallest crevasses of a car seat and show up again when you least expect it. First, use your napkins to clean up the large chunks. Gross, but essential. We have trash bags in the van--you can even use old grocery store bags. But you MUST have something to hold the waste. This is not optional--plastic bags in the family vehicle are a survivor basic. Next, carefully extract the child from their seat. Do this with ease so that leftover stragglers of food will not tumble onto your floorboard.

Now you have a decision to make and it is a hard one. Do you undress your child so that they will not play in the vomit? Or do you continue to clean the seat before the stench sets in? In our case, we had two parents, so we took both steps at once. However, in some cases, you may find yourself in solitude--unable to get help. Survivor Mom suggests that you take the offending clothes off of your child and put the child in a safe location while you turn your attention to the car seat. If throw up gets in the hair, back in the mouth, or all over the arms, the child will likely hurl again and cause a double clean up.

Make good use of your wet wipes here to clean up your child to the best of your ability. You will not be able to totally remove the vomit smell, but you can minimize it to a level that will make the remainder of your drive home tolerable. In our scenario, we had a change of clothes on hand. (One of my survival tips is to not clean our your car too often. We had a similar throw up situation happen about 2 months ago and I had taken a change of clothes with me. Since I only clean out my van once in a blue moon, I still had the extra set with me. However, I do not always carry those with me. Worse case--your child goes home naked.)

While I was cleaning up and redressing my daughter, my husband was busy cleaning the straps to the car seat with wet wipes. Remember, put every used wipe and napkin into the plastic bag. After you are done, this MUST be sealed off and if possible disposed of immediately. If you have no choice but to drive home with it, crack your windows.

At the end of this race, we still had the soiled clothes and blankets to deal with. A quick scan of the van revealed we did not have a bag large enough to hold the contents. We wrapped those up and compact as we could and placed them in the furthest point in the back of the van. We cracked open the back windows and crossed our fingers.

I am proud to say we beat the storm. Working in the rain would have been miserable at best. We hit the road back home--stinking but mostly clear of the vile bile. However, I had one last tip up my sleeve.

As the rain settled in, I stuck my hand carefully out the car window to collect the fresh water drops. Rubbing my hands together, I was able to use this to wipe off more of the offending smell. If you are lucky enough to have a fresh water source close to you, take advantage of it. You will be glad you did.

That's all for now,

Survivor Mom