Road Trip #2 - Barfing Boogaloo

We got back from our 2nd road trip of the summer last night. The drive back home was just fine (well that is after the emergency room visit from my son playing with rat poisoning - but that's a whole different story). The kids were exhausted after two nights in a row of not getting to bed before 11:30 PM (fantastic parenting on my part) and they sort of just stared out the window quietly. The trip there wasn't exactly so easy.

Before we left, the kids and I went to the library to get some new videos for the road. We got a few of the old regulars, Max & Ruby and Maggie & the Ferocious Beast. But my daughter picked out a new video that we have not seen before - it is a little blue animated guy and the title says "Hi, I'm Todd" - I'll tell you right now that Todd is a jerk.

We were on the road for about an hour and the kids were acting completely insane. They were screaming at the top of their lungs and laughing really hard. It was clearly great fun for them however my husband was about to drive off a bridge on purpose so I went to the old road trip standby and pulled out the video player.

Trying to be different, I pulled out the "Todd" video. Big mistake! All was fine at first and the kids were quiet and watching intently for about 30 minutes. All of a sudden my daughter let out a blood curdling cry and said, "I'm going to throw up!" - I hurriedly dumped everything onto the floor out of a plastic grocery bag I had and threw the bag to her. She just kind of laid there and groaned and complained about her tummy. Of course we were in the middle of nowhere Kansas and there was no place to stop.

My son contently watched the video and ate iced animal crackers, all the while I'm constantly asking my daughter if she wants us to pull over to the side of the road or if she could wait until we found some hole in the wall rest stop.

We were going like 100 miles an hour to find a suitable barfing location. The millionth time I turned around to ask if my daughter was okay, I heard my son cough so my eyes naturally went to him. At that precise moment he projectile vomited everywhere. No warning, no upsetness, no nothing. He then went on to continue to eat his animal crackers.

Strangely my daughter never got sick but she felt terrible for a few minutes. We turned off the video, pulled over, cleaned everything up (well I cleaned everything up, my husband does not do vomit, which works out fine because come to find out, I don't do rat poisoning very well) and went on our way. Everyone was fine from then on. After much discussion about what the kids had eaten, drank, any flu viruses going around, etc. we came to the conclusion that it was that stupid Todd video. What a little blue putz, Charlie and Lola have never made my kids yack on a road trip. I don't know what kind of crazy animation he had going on there but Todd is no longer welcome in our home - err - car.

Glad the road trips are over for the summer - oh, well except that little one we are taking to northern Minnesota - only about a 9 hour drive... Ahhhhhh the memories!