Challenge of the Day

I learned a good lesson today. When you take a big carseat completely apart for a major cleaning, you better take good notes as to how the thing goes back together. This morning, I sat on the floor with straps and buckles and little white plastic things surrounding me... it was a mess. Caution: This story is a little gross Let me try to briefly set up the scene for this morning's family crisis. Yesterday, on the way home from Wal-Mart, Olivia started to cough violently. Needless to say, the conjestion she has been experiencing was loosening up and her nose started running. Only minutes from home, I calmly reached for the roll of toilet paper (yes, we exhausted all the tissues in our house) I had stashed in my purse and proceded to tear off a wad of it to wipe my poor child's nose all the while steering the vehicle onward down the lane. Just as I reached my arm back to take a semi-blind swipe at her face, I heard the inevidable. Yes, Olivia threw up like she had never thrown up before in her 15 1/2 months here on earth. I thought to myself: "I'm going to need a little more tissue than this." Well, I pulled into our apartment complex and parked. After quickly evaluating the soggy state of little Olivia, I decided to unbuckle the whole seat and just carry her in the carseat up to our third floor apartment. My loving husband appeared at the scene at that very moment (my hero!!). He asked me what was wrong (I set off the car alarm to get his attention since I forgot my cell phone and I couldn't leave Olivia in the car to run upstairs and ask him to come down and help me)-- then he saw the whole mess.... everything needed to be cleaned-- and I mean CLEANED! This was not a spot-job. Since Olivia has never had a major "blowout" in any form in her carseat, we have never had to take the whole thing apart for a deep cleaning. Surely, I am not the first who has ever attempted this! Those things are a doozie to reassemble even if you do pay attention to how you took it apart! Well, I am glad to report that it came back together after about an hour of figuring it out. We took a quick trip out to where our house is being built, and Olivia threw up again on the way home.

Note to Grandma: No, Olivia is not going to church tomorrow, and No, I will not take the child out of the house again until she has experienced at least a whole day of perfect health :)