So we don’t do day trips the easy way. Yesterday we had a simple plan: drive down to Harrisburg, meet the Gaetanos at the State Museum of PA, play and hang out all day, and come home. Yeah.
The kids were so excited until we pulled up in front of the museum. Then Elizabeth started throwing up again and again and, well, 3 or 4 times. Tommy looked over and started puking, too. My amazing husband kept his cool and kept driving us over to a gas station, where he got out in the pouring rain and started cleaning Elizabeth off while I tended to Tommy. Of course all their clothes and the carseats were covered, but we wiped them off with diaper wipes as best we could and started searching for options for them to wear. Fortunately, their shoes and socks had escaped, but we didn’t have much to put them in. Tommy had a pair of shorts at the bottom of the diaper bag left over from potty training accident days, but Elizabeth had to settle for Derek’s undershirt. So much for the cute outfits they’d picked out so excitedly that morning! I ran the kids across the street to the museum and left Derek with the lovely tasks of finding a laundromat, cleaning up the carseats enough for us to take the kids home in them, and getting the stink out of the car as best he could.
Fortunately, Dominic and Cate are the same size as our kids, and Amy happened to have an extra pair of Cate’s leggings for Elizabeth and a fleece hoodie that Tommy could wear. Once they were dressed again, both of them were totally fine–it was pretty clearly a classic case of carsickness from the winding roads down to Harrisburg. So we had a fun morning in the kid’s center of the museum, watching the kids play and talking Hillsdale/Pepperdine. Derek finally made it back for a late lunch, then we headed over to a playhouse cafe where the kids amazingly skipped their naps and played for another couple of hours while we lounged and had coffee.
Tommy chattered on and on about how much fun he had with Dominic for most of the way home. Of course Derek’s day had to end with a torrential rainstorm once it got dark, the kind where you’re white knuckled, hoping that no one else on the road idiotically drives too fast. We’re home safely, and I get to spend the day deoderizing the van as best I can! We really do hope to have one more play date with the Gaetanos before we both move this summer, though hopefully with a bit less excitement than this one…
What a day!!
So great to see that the kids had fun. Derek will not remember the day as fondly as they will.
Well, they both look completely happy in spite of the circumstances! I had a Jonah Day yesterday… complete with a bag of pasta sauce breaking through my grocery sack and shattering into a million pieces on the kitchen floor! I think being so very pregnant only complicates matters. 🙂
Ugg! Trips always take the weirdest twists. Sorry. 🙁
I have to say, however, that I think Elizabeth’s outfit turned out really cute–kinda American-Apparel-80’s-throwback.
oh my! these accounts make me feel very sorry for my mom, who told me repeatedly how I threw up almost every time I got in the car from infancy to age 10! but I really did get a good belly laugh at E’s outfit. hahaha.