The end of the story, plus a couple more

{Warning: Vomit & Poop are mentioned in the below story}

We headed out late Sunday night to make the drive back to the heat.

I had popped in a movie for Luke to watch, Cars, his choice.

When we were approaching Fillmore, Luke decided he had had enough of Cars and wanted Toy Story (I should have known, he is never very interested in Cars).

I couldn’t find the movie case anywhere and started to panic I had left it sitting on top of the car.

At this point Luke chimed in and said he needed to go potty.

Jared pulled off to the nearest gas station.

I knew it was going to be a long trip at this point if we were already stopping off in Fillmore.

I got out and searched for the missing DVDs while Jared attempted to get Luke to the potty.

Luke insisted that he know longer needed to go.

I found the beloved Toy Story DVD and we were back on the road again. (Although, once I found the DVDs Luke changed his mind again and wanted to watch Curious George).

Once it was started getting late I turned off George and told Luke it was time for bed.

He laid his head against the side of the car seat with his blanket and tried to go to sleep.

About 20 minutes later he said, “Mom, sick”.

Now this is a phrase I hear about 15 times a day. He uses it whenever he doesn’t want to eat, sleep, potty or listen. I never know when to really believe him or not, but I usually play along for 2 seconds.

I turned around and asked what hurt.

“Belly”, he said.

I started rubbing his belly when all the sudden I saw the look on his face and out came the puke….

Most of it in my hand, but then it just kept coming.

Now if this incident would have happened pre-mommy days, you better believe that I would be puking or at least dry-heaving as well.

I have toughened up since becoming a mom.

I told Jared we needed to make another stop because we have a mess on our hands.

He pulled off the next exit which was in Kanarrahville (wherever that is).

Luckily, there was a rest stop right off the exit.

My hand and his blankets got most of the damage, but we stripped his down and I ran into the bathroom to hose him off.

Jared worked on cleaning the car seat while Luke kept starting at me wondering what in the world just happened.

Once the situation was under control we headed back out.

Luke immediately fell asleep and I thought it must have just been carsickness.

We made it to St. George with Luke still asleep. Right as we were going in the Virgin River Gorge traffic stopped.

Completely.

Now this was 10:30pm so my guess was an accident.

Jared’s guess was construction.

Jared was right.

We were stop and go the whole way through the gorge.

It took 2 hours to drive wait through it.

During this time Luke woke up and started crying that his stomach hurt.

I thought we were going to have a major disaster on our hands, but I think he emptied his stomach the first go-round.

He would cry for about ten minutes and then conk back out again.

Twenty minutes later, cry again for ten minutes and then back to sleep.

The cycle continued the whole way through the gorge.

He told me he needed to go “black potty” while still stuck in traffic.

I am sure you can guess what black potty means. This isn’t a code word I came up with, Luke made this up all on his own.

Once we finally made it out with our sanity we pulled off in Mesquite so Luke could go black potty.

I ran into the McDonalds only to have the bathroom closed for cleaning.

I then ran with him to the gas station next door.

It only had one stall and there was a “gorge traffic-type line” wrapped around the Doritos chip display.

I ran back to McDonalds to find it was now opened for the using.

I crouched down in the dirty McDonalds bathroom stall to help Luke.

He then looks at me and says, “I need Daddy”.

WHAT???

After all that?

There was no love for his mommy.

I ran out to the car to do the hand-off.

Jared then ran into McDonalds only to find no toilet paper in any stall.

I kept asking Luke if he really needed to go, which he kept reassuring me that he needed to.

We all hopped back in the car and headed across the street to another gas station (only to find that it was 51 cents cheaper in gas after already filling up with the expensive stuff, 51 cents people!!).

Jared ran in with him while I waited in the car.

Fifteen minutes later they were back…with no black potty deposited.

Major sigh at this point.

We hit the road once more only to have the cycle of cries continue the whole way home.

Poor Luke!

We finally made it home at 1:30am.

The next morning he threw up one more time and rested all day.

He finally started to perk up after a very long nap.

It was quite the ride home, hopefully we will never have to experience that again.

Oh, and he did end up going “black potty” the next morning if you were worried.

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Yesterday I ran into one of Ruby’s nurses at Hobby Lobby.

I wasn’t sure it was her until she started talking.

She is from England and has a great accent.

I leaned over and said, Hi Liz.

She turned around and said, Oh my goodness, Ruby! (in her English accent)

I wasn’t sure she would remember me because I am sure they take care of a lot of babies.

She told me that they still talk about Ruby all the time in the NICU.

She said she put her picture right by the phone so they see it often.

This made my day.

I feel truly blessed that Ruby had so many people that truly cared about her.

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Yesterday I decided to have Luke finger-paint, the un-messy way.

I found it on pinterest.

Here is the link: http://hippiehousewife.blogspot.com/2012/01/mess-free-finger-painting.html

I thought he would love it because he isn’t fond of getting his fingers dirty.

I thought it would be a great way to practice the alphabet.

I thought wrong.

I put blue on one side of the bag and red on the other.

He wasn’t quite sure what to do so when I started to show him how to mix them he had a minor major freak-out.

He was so mad at me that I started to mix the paints.

He wanted red to stay on the left side and blue on the right.

He had a meltdown for about 25 minutes.

I thought we were overcoming some of his obsessive compulsiveness but not when it comes to mixing paint.