to Granny's house we go . . .

This weekend we are visiting Jon's family in Fort Myers. We left Jacksonville at 3pm yesterday afternoon (thank you Jeff for covering Jon's pager so we could leave early). After 5 and a half hours of driving and a stop at McDonald's we made it!!! The trip was relatively uneventful with the typical whining and fighting kept to a minimum. The only "bump" in the road so to speak was the fact that Lauren gets carsick occasionally . . . oh yeah, my beautiful, sweet little Lauren got carsick. Now normally I would not blog about what I consider to be a disgusting subject, but the way it all went down had me in stitches.

Imagine if you will driving on I-4 through downtown Orlando at 5:30 on a Friday afternoon. Bumper to bumper traffic as far as the eye can see. I was driving while Jon was napping; after breaking for like the hundreth time Jon woke up and gave me the 'be careful, your going to kill us, stop accelerating when you know you'll have to stop again in 2 seconds, your driving me crazy with your driving' lecture. The kids are beginning to wake up from their naps . . . and then it happens; without warning Lauren starts puking all over herself and and the backseat. On most trips this would have made me want to cry instead of laugh, but this time I was the one driving which meant Jon was the one who had to deal with it . . . or so you'd think.

Here's what happened; because we had hung the portable DVD player between our seats Jon was unable to climb to the back of the van to help her, but thankfully he has long arms and was able to hand a bowl back to her after her initial upchuck. He then proceeded to "coach" her through the experience. It went something like this:

"Lauren, get it in the bowl! "

"Honey, quit crying and lean over the bowl. Good girl . . ."

And once she was finished puking . . . she started crying again because she had puked in her hands and all over her lap. And this is when I started laughing, not at Lauren, but at how Jon handled the situation. So here goes . . .

"Stop crying, I don't have anything to clean you up with."

"Do we have something to clean her up with?"

"Here Lauren, here are some wipes. Just clean yourself up."

"Okay, now pick up the chunks and put them in the bowl. See that one pick it up and put it in the bowl."

Meanwhile Lauren starts gagging while she picks up the "chunks." And Jon responds, "It's not a big deal honey, you just puked in your hands!"

After a few minutes of "pick up the chunks and put them in the bowl" and me laughing so hard I was crying, I was able to pull off the road and get the mess cleaned up. Yep, that's right, I still ended up cleaning up the seat, the floor, and my sweet little girl.