Kathy said around cocktail hour on August 12, 2007
What to do when your child has emptied his last three meals onto your lap in the middle of a very busy Dairy Queen in 7 easy steps:
- Don’t make any noise or sudden movements… try not to draw any attention to yourself.... that includes gasping and/or flailing.
- Once you stop flailing and saying “oh GOD"… start mopping as fast as you can with whatever is available. Using your own ice cream sundae as a catch-all is encouraged.
- Do not under any circumstance make eye contact with anyone in the whole establishment.
- Ignore comments like “Ewww!” and “Mom it smells!"… continue avoiding eye contact except for when you glare so hard that your eyeballs bulge because your husband is walking back to the table WAY TOO SLOW with like 2 napkins.
- Glare at husband again and between clenched teeth instruct him to get more if he wants to leave Dairy Queen with his balls in tact.
- Flee the scene immediately. Screech tires in the parking lot if you can.
- Wonder how long you’ll continue to smell barf even though you’ve burned everyone’s clothing and showered for 45 minutes.
Dear Dairy Queen,
Sooorrrrryyyyy!
Love, Kathy
from Farm Country, PA
Cocktail: Your Mom
Julie’s son did that when I was like 14 weeks pregnant. In his grandmother’s hands and she took it like a champ, and his grandfather shrugged his shoulders and kept on eating. The Meester fled the scene and I actually did o.k. until her mother asked me to help her scrape the barf off the tray, into the garbage. I’m like “woman, where have you been for the last 9 weeks?” I started to dry heave.
And then there was another time way before that when I kid hurled the entire contents of his milk and bagel onto the floor next to us and the meester was like “can we move? can we move? CAN WE PLEASE MOVE RIGHT NOW?”
I have no idea how I’m going to handle barf. No.idea.
from Boston
Oh dude. I feel your pain. Charlotte did this to me at Whole Foods a few weeks ago and she luckily managed to hit mostly my skirt and the floor. She of course remained relatively clean. Also luckily I tend to carry an enormous bag of baby wipes where ever I go and so I mopped us up pretty well but the floor not so much. I abandoned the cart and was all “Sooorrrryyyy guys!” Fortunately they were helpful and nice and I RAN out the door before the next wave of vomit emerged.
from your moms.
I remember one morning about 9 years ago, I was eating breakfast with my mom and a couple of my sisters at a local food place in town, and while we were eating, we sat and watched a table near by that had 3 little boys at it and one mom. I don’t know if they were all hers, or if it was the aftermath of a slumber party, or what.
Aaaanywho, this woman had bought pancakes and eggs and cereal and sausage and bacon and a cinnamon roll or two and waffles and pretty well everything the menu offered for breakfast for herself and these three kids. And we were watching them because it was so amazing to see them shoveling so much food into their mouths!
It was bound to happen, though. We were paying our bill when the littlest one (and the one that I had been watching eat the most amount of food) chucked everything back up. All over the table and the lady and partially onto the floor. It didn’t take long before the kid sitting across from the littlest kid threw up as well. We were amazed that the third kid was holding it together so well...until he threw up about a minute and a half later.
We got out of there as quickly as we could. Mercifully, as I recall, the restaurant wasn’t very busy right then. Because oh holy sweet baby jeezy chreezy...that was NOT a mess that would have been fun with a crowd around it. Remember the eating contest story from Stand By Me? Yeah, I’d imagine something like that happening.
I don’t know how you moms do it. I’d NEVER be able to handle the throwing up. Never.
from your moms.
"Wonder how long you’ll continue to smell barf even though you’ve burned everyone’s clothing and showered for 45 minutes.”
You’re having PTBS. Post-traumatic barf syndrome.
from your moms.
What is it about DQ? Our oldest did that this last year… we were standing there ordering ice cream and he lost his cookies all over the floor. We just stood there stunned… looking at him like who’s kid is that? I felt so horrid and kept saying… he wasn’t ACTING like he was sick… seriously, he wasn’t!!! We really didn’t know until now… honestly. Our apologies to DQ, too. : )
from your moms.
I just blogged about my first barf experience with The Honey Bee. Good Lord, the horror! I sure it only gets better from here.
from your moms.
See this is how I know I’m not cut out for parenthood. I could change dirty diapers all day long, but I don’t do vomit! Blech! If I were in your shoes, I would have just died right there on the spot.
from your moms.
I’d have kept right on eating my ice cream. They have people to clean that up.
Kidding. Sympathies, dude.