If I've learned anything in my 19 months as a parent, it's that there are many circumstances over which you have absolutely no control. If you stress yourself out trying to make everything perfect, you are going to end up completely miserable, and that it's so much better to laugh off what you can and roll with the punches.
I feel that I probably adopted this philosophy from a young age. I am the second oldest of five kids, and we were NEVER the perfectly dressed well-behaved kids. We were the family rushing late into church, nobody's outfits matched, and half of us had breakfast crumbs somewhere on our faces. We looked like one collective hot mess, but hey, we at least showed up, right?
Naturally, I assumed this "laugh it off, they're just kids" approach to parenting was just a given, and that I wouldn't even have to experience it first-hand. I thought I had a really good handle on craziness and a healthy outlook on the things life throws at me. That was, until my toddler barfed in a Five Guys.
The incident occurred on a rainy Friday. MK and I were invited to go with a friend and his kids to The Magic House, which is an insanely fun place to take kids if you're in St. Louis. I had been babysitting for this family for the previous six weeks while their regular babysitter was on maternity leave, and this little day out was a "Thank you" for the work I had done to help with their three little boys. The kids spent all morning running, jumping, playing, sliding, climbing, creating, and splashing. By the time 11am rolled around, the whole group was starving, and we headed down the street to binge on too many fries and delicious burgers just before nap time was about to start.
I got MK all set up in a plastic high chair, and we shared some French fries while I waited for her hot dog to cool off. She wasn't really all that into the hot dog, probably because we don't feed them to her that often, but I thought she should have some protein, so I kept trying to get her to eat some. She eventually cooperated, and ate several bites. She had her trusty sippy cup full of water, and all seemed right with the world. Then, out of nowhere, she puked all over herself.
I'm not talking about a little bit of manageable baby spit-up. Nope, this was full-on kid puke, and it landed right between two tables. The poor thing looked scared out of her mind. "WTF just came out of me?!?!" her sweet little face screamed. She was so confused, and her eyes were searching mine for some kind of explanation. Trying to remain calm, I wiped up what I could, mustered up a sweet voice and told her that she was okay. I handed her her cup of water, and told her to take a little sip. She seemed to have calmed down, and was acting like her normal, sweet self.
The lunch rush was just starting to pour into the restaurant, and we had stupidly picked a table that was both right in front of the soda fountain machines and right next to the entrance to the bathrooms. There was no hiding this mess. Everyone could see it.
Just when I was starting to think maybe we could easily make a mad dash out of this place, disaster struck a second time, and MK puked up everything that was left in her little belly. Oh, the horror. I started frantically throwing napkins on the floor to at least cover up the horrendous scene. An employee happened to be walking by, and I stopped her to tell her what happened and apologize profusely. Major props to this girl, who was probably 19 and terrified of kids, she kept her cool, told us not to worry, and that either she or someone else would be right back to help clean up.
I was a lifeguard for five years. In that time, I have cleaned up more of other people's bodily function mishaps than you can imagine. I know that there are maintenance workers whose jobs it is to take care of things like this, but I still hate the idea of subjecting someone else to the accidents of myself or my family's. I adamantly continued cleaning what I could. A very, very kind maintenance worker appeared and repeatedly told me not to worry about cleaning up, and that he had the appropriate supplies to really get this area cleaned. I felt like he was saying, "Listen lady, those crappy napkins aren't going to kill your kid's germs the way my industrial-strength cleaning products will. Calm the eff down," in the nicest way possible.
Tail tucked between my legs, I whisked MK down the hallway to change her into our backup outfit. Once back at the table, we decided it was clearly time to get out of there, and I sat with the other kids while my friend alternated bathroom trips with his kids.
The whole time I was sitting there, I felt like every single person inside the restaurant was staring at me and my kid, judging and wondering why we were still there. After several minutes of over-reacting and panicking, I took a deep breath and realized that my kid was okay, nobody was mad, and that there was actual humor happening here. There was nothing I could have done to prevent this, and I did do my best to contain the situation. All there was left to do was laugh.
While I may have spent a solid 10-15 minutes in complete panic and disbelief, I eventually felt the years of watching my parents' examples settling in, and reminding me to find a way to enjoy this chaotic little blip on life's radar. And now, when I re-tell this story, I'm able to laugh instead of shake my head in disbelief.
... but I really didn't think I'd be dealing with a puking incident of this magnitude until my kid was at least 8 or 9.
