"Mom, I'm gonna be sick!" gurgled my five-year-old daughter, looking slightly green. I've told my daughters from the time they were old enough to make certain basic decisions on their own that something is only an emergency if it's bleeding or on fire. Both of them knew that I made exceptions, however, and the five-year-old was brilliant at figuring them out and wielding them at the most inopportune moments. This particular skill of hers demanded that I had to be quick and creative to avoid a catastrophe, and I only had a one in two chance of being quick and creative enough. A complicating factor was always if her older sister was present, since she had a trigger-happy gag reflex and a startlingly rapid descent into panic and tears - and there was usually only one of me to manage the apocalypse.
The first time Rosi made good on her threat to be sick, we were visiting a good friend in Edmonton for a couple of days. Whether something she ate disagreed with her or the change of environment upset her equilibrium, the repeated eruptions of vomit she produced were impressive, considering she was only three at the time. If the measure of a friend is by whether or not said friend will help with mops, buckets, laundry to clean up the messes, as well as with clean sheets and cuddles and comfort to calm crying children, then Karen certainly passed with flying colours. Between the sick child and the hysterical child, Karen helped me get through what might have been one of the longest nights of my life otherwise - and our friendship survived. As did my children.
Unfortunately, that was one of those times when I was neither quick nor creative enough. Another was a couple of years later when my daughters and I, together with my relatively new partner, were living in Germany, which was the best place from which to take vacations in Europe. German school holidays are generous, and regularly spaced throughout the school year. For the two-week Easter break, we decided to rent a motorhome and drive through Switzerland to Northern Italy, probably not one of our most intelligent decisions, although, overall, it was memorable, mostly in good ways.
Except for the driving. The motorhome was not overly large, so readily manoeuverable for the experienced driver. We had not, however, accounted for the curvaceous Autostrada, the many toll booth exits at bewildering points, or the suspension of the motorhome, which made the ride for passengers, for lack of a better word, swoopy. Those of us sitting behind the driver were treated to turns that made us reel over sideways in slow motion and bounce in our seats, also in slomo, in a most unsettling, stomach-lurching way. Whichever way the motorhome swayed, our stomachs were just slightly behind, before being swung in the other direction.
My partner was at the wheel, navigating a particularly challenging series of curves and turns along a steep decline; the girls were behind us, ostensibly playing cards, and I was in the passenger seat, desperately battling to keep my lunch down. Suddenly, from the back - "Mom! I think I'm gonna be...." Rosi never finished the sentence, throwing up in the moment that the vehicle swung grandly into another curve. All over the seat, the table, the cards, herself. And then bursting into tears.
Unfortunately, Lolo beat her to the tears. As soon as she grasped the imminent catastrophe, she began to sob and gasp for breath herself. "I can't stop here!" hissed my partner through clenched teeth. No, he couldn't. A guardrail was the only thing between us and the gorge below on one side, a ditch and a high cliff on the other, and no place to pull off the Autostrada.
I took a deep breath, unbuckled my seatbelt, and made my staggering, lurching way to the back of the vehicle where the girls were sobbing and surveying the mess with horror. How could one small person produce such a volume of sick? Somehow, with the aid of wet wipes, paper towels, and who knew how many bowls of water - yes, bowls; after all, who has a cleaning bucket and mop in a rented motorhome? - I managed to wash, and clean, and wipe, and dry - surfaces and children - in this moving vehicle that behaved like a bouncy castle on wheels at 80 kph. By the time we did manage to find a pull-out on the highway, all of us were wondering what on earth had possessed us to take a holiday in a motorhome. And this was our first day on the road.
Having recovered somewhat from the ordeal, we continued on to our first destination, Genoa, and I made a point of stopping at a Farmacia to buy an anti-nauseant for motion sickness. While I lacked the language skills to explain what I wanted, the pharmacist understood my frantic sign language readily enough, so I suspect he must have had children who got car sick too - or had dealt with other, equally incomprehensible parents before. The rest of our road trip passed without a repeat of the drama on the first day - at least, I believe it did. Perhaps I repressed similar unpleasant memories.
But I also confess that I deployed another of my foolproof parenting strategies intended to ensure my survival without harming the child: don't hesitate to use appropriate drugs to achieve the calm and serenity of sleep for said child - and the calm and serenity of mind for the parent. Motion sickness tablets for children are miraculous in their effect, since they not only eliminate the child's nausea but put the child into a deep and peaceful sleep for many hours, allowing all the driving to be done without interruption or worry. Rosi has, unsurprisingly, few memories of the road trip itself, although we made sure to wake her up whenever we stopped.
One would think I would have learned my lesson from an earlier event, but like I said, speed and creativity to avoid a disaster really only have a one in two chance of being sufficiently speedy and creative. Proximity, I've decided, can also play a part.
On that earlier occasion, our family was on a bus tour for the day, from Freiburg, Germany, to Strasbourg, France, the seat of the European Parliament. My partner, who was the resident director of a university exchange program for Canadian students in Germany, had chartered the bus and a guide, and thought it would be a good experience for our children to come along. They knew all the students, and the students were cheerful about including them, and me as well.
The students had arrived from their residences in various points throughout the city and gathered at the university to wait for the bus on a rainy, windy, miserable, and unseasonably cold spring day. As we boarded the bus - twenty-eight waterlogged students, our family of four, the guide, and the driver - I was already dreading the ninety-minute drive. Everyone had brought rain jackets, umbrellas, mittens, and hats, in addition to backpacks, and not ten minutes into the ride, the air was beginning to steam and smell faintly like wet possum.
Fortunately, the girls were distracted to such a degree by the conversations and antics of the students that they barely noticed the bus was
in motion and permeated by unpleasant odours. Not until we entered the city and the bus began to navigate narrow streets, stopping and starting for traffic lights and other vehicles, did everyone fall silent and begin to pay attention to the passing sights. Just as we were pulling into the parking lot, preparing to disembark for our city tour, I breathed a sigh of relief that the trip had passed uneventfully. Until - "Mom, I'm gonna barf!"
Without stopping to see whether Lolo was going to burst into tears, I glanced around desperately for some kind of receptacle to present itself so we could avert a catastrophe. "MOM!!" Seeing nothing that would serve the purpose, I snatched Rosi's toque off her head and held it open. And having no other choice, R threw up in her favourite turquoise fleece toque. Not a drop was spilled.
As this drama was unfolding at the front of the bus, the students and the guide, along with Lolo and my partner, were clambering off at the back exit and assembling in groups in the parking lot, so it appeared that I had been sufficiently quick and creative - and discreet! - to act before anyone fully grasped the scope of the disaster that had been headed off. Rosi managed to stop sobbing and quivering, I wiped her tears and gave her a sip of water, and bundled her off the bus, looking around now for something in which to wrap the toque. Someone had left a plastic lunch bag lying on a seat, so I grabbed it, stuffed the offending object inside, wrapped it tightly, and lodged it at the bottom of my backpack. In the days following, I did manage to wash the toque, and no one was ever the wiser about what services it had rendered. It remained Rosi's favourite hat, mostly because her best friend had exactly the same one.
And while I did manage to avert a catastrophe on this occasion, having done so merely illustrated that I could not be guaranteed future successes. Blood and fire are not, I must confess, the only emergencies after all when one has young children who are masters at finding new ways with which to challenge their parents' speed, skill, and creativity at emergency responses.
