The Schmidt Family Blog: May 2010

(sophie having an adorable fit last summer)

A few weeks ago my sister sent me a link to this story of a mom who had had a horrible day- the kind of day when it doesn't seem like anything could get worse and then you get surprised by worse. I laughed at the story. I know we all have had them- especially moms with young kids! here's the link if you're interested in a good laugh:http://www.feminagirls.com/2010/04/01/spaghetti-and-meatballs-anyone/#comments
(the story is posted in the comment section of this gal's blog. If you want to read it, you need to scroll down and find the comment written by rebekah on apr. 2nd at 1:05am)

Last week i had my equivalent story: Andrew was in the middle of a 4 day trip, he left the day after we got back from our week in mexico so the kids were in need of some full-time retraining/reconditioning back into normal life at home and away from the loving and indulgent care of their wonderful grandparents. On this particular day I had already had never-ending discipline issues, plus i wasn't feeling too great due to some "traveler's sickness" i picked up a few days before we left mexico. We had barely got through dinner and i was a little devastated when i realized we still had 2 more hours till bedtime. I decided that we had to get in the car and take a drive. After several fits from the girls over their shoe/ sock preferences i got them all in the car and pulled out. I felt like crying and maybe did cry a little but i put on some peppy music and tried to will away the emotional drama in my 3 kiddos. Just as i was feeling some hope in the circumstance i took a glance in the rear view mirror only to witness Madeline barfing all over herself, car seat and hands. And then she barfed again. Simultaneously Sophie starts exclaiming over and over while pointing dangerously close to the barf coming out of her sister's mouth:
"AHH! AHH! SIS! SIS! AHH! MOM! AHHH!"
Meanwhile I'm trying to get out of traffic and onto the side of the road while at the same time checking the mirror and watching more barf spew out. It was during those moments i felt like i was drifting out of my body and watching everything unfold from above. Throw up might seem kinda commonplace to brave people but to me it is my #1 fear in life. I don't have even 1 personal memory of throwing up which only has made it that much more terrifying. Of all things that could go wrongly, throwing up is on the top of my list of things to dread. So to see it coming out ALL over was terribly ironic. I felt myself gag. Then poor Madeline started to cry and begin to freak out about the stuff that was now all over herself.
It wasn't until i pulled over that Will realized something was going wrong so once i got out and opened the side door he began his list of questions:
"Mommy, mommy, what happened? why? who? Sophie too? what are you doing? what are you doing now? what are we going to do??"

I looked around for something to clean her with. All i could find were some plastic bags to scoop some of it off. Back in the car it suddenly dawned on Will the implications of what had happened. He began giving me all kinds of advice and horrible forebodings:
"Mommy, when we get home, you're going to have to give her a bath and clean ALL her clothes and clean the car and her car seat! And mommy, you're just going to be up ALL night because she's just going to keep barfing and then you're going to have to give her more baths and clean her clothes again and clean up ALL the barf and you'll just have to keep waking up and cleaning and doing laundry and you won't get to sleep tonight and...."
I was about to become hysterical. All of a sudden i had visions of ALL the kids barfing ALL night and ME barfing and i just knew there would be no way i could handle that. "Will!", i yelled, "We are just going to have to pray that that doesn't happen! We need to pray that Madeline gets better and then she doesn't barf again. Ever!"
Will, very nonchalantly replied, "welllll, you and i can just pray about that tonight when you're tucking me in and after we have a little talk".
Then i texted andrew because i knew i needed to warn him. I wrote, "madeline just threw up in the car, if she keeps it up through the night i will probably die. fyi"

Anyway, end of story is, God is merciful. No one else got sick, Madeline never showed any other symptoms, i, somehow got everything cleaned up without barfing myself, and andrew gave me tons of sympathy when he called later that night after getting my text.
I was trying to figure out why my worst possible scenario came true that night and what I was supposed to learn from it. I still can't think of any really good reasons (*except that we've gotten some good laughs!) but at least now i have a measure with which to measure other "unbearable" days: just when i think things are as worse as they can get, i can ask myself "is anyone barfing all over the car??" If not, it must not be too bad. :)

Andrew and i have had in our minds for the past 6 yrs. that we would take a tropical vacation sometime. We hoped sooner than later. Once we found out we were expecting baby #4 we knew we had to jump on the opportunity while we could. Thankfully we have wonderful grandparents who were actually excited to take on the job of caring for two 2yr olds and a nearly 5yr.old for 6 days! We hopped on a plane to Mexico and were super excited to get away and just relax for awhile.

our lovely resort in Playa del Carmen

We were able to go on a really fun Mayan jungle adventure which included visiting some cool mayan ruins, repelling, zip-line, hiking, canoeing, biking, and swimming in a cenote- underground sink hole.