Jessica's Blog

This weekend Honey Girl had a truly traumatic event occur.

Hubby was getting set to take the kids out.  He sent them to the garage with the understanding that they would get into Luis (the Nissan).  When the kids dashed to the car, he came upstairs to get the shopping list, or what have you.  I was changing Little Lady's diaper on the top floor.

I was coming downstairs to the living room when I heard the sound of Honey Girl crying hysterically.  She does this thing where she can't catch her breath and the hitching sobs cause her to gag and wretch.  I know, it's great.  I assumed he and Big Boy got into a tiff, or she fell down or something, but the cry was much much worse than that.

Hubby looked concerned and simply said she was justifiably upset.  She had had an accident in her pants.  She sobbed this to me as I passed Little Lady to Hubby so I could hold Honey Girl.  I soothed her that it was ok, it was ok as Hubby explained what had happened.

Honey Girl had run downstairs and jumped into the Nissan, as instructed, and closed the doors.  Big Boy meandered down the stairs and got into the minivan (not as told) and was playing on his Leapster with the doors closed.  Honey Girl had the sudden urge to go potty (as most three year olds do), but wasn't able to get out of the car due to the child locks on the backseat doors.  The doors were unlocked, but due to child safety.. she was essentially locked in the car.  Panic set in as Honey Girl has not had an accident (and is exceedingly proud of this fact) in a long long long time.  She couldn't get out of the car and was screaming and yelling as loud as she could for help, and pounding on the doors, but no one could hear her.  She soiled herself.

Hubby heard her when he had gotten to the main floor and ran downstairs.  Big Boy hadn't heard her at all inside the van, and felt horrible and was extremely apologetic.  Buck the dog was quite concerned and followed her up the stairs and kept guard as I held her on the landing.

As I held her and soothed her and coached her to breathe, she started to wretch, and I knew she was going to hurl.  Sure enough, the first pass came up and got me.  I asked Hubby to "get me something" and he passed me a washcloth.  I still laugh at this because his thinking was that she wasn't going to full on vomit... but of course she did!  Three or four good belly emptying throws on me and the stairs. 

You know your a mom when someone is puking all over you and all you can think to say is, "That's okay, honey... go on, get it all out.... okay... it's okay.. you think there's more in there?  No, no, no.... it's okay you poor thing, don't worry about it.  It's just a shirt and we can clean the floor.... do you feel a little better?"

Honey Girl of course got upset that she had throw up in her shirt. 

Honey Girl got a nice soothing bath in Momma's favorite bath salts (meditation) and shared stories with me while she soaked, calmed, regrouped and Hubby cleaned the carpet.  I told her my stuck in the car story and she laughed.  See, my story ended in me yelling at my parents, "How could you!?!?" and my parents simply saying, "You were asleep."  My, how times have changed.  She made up stories about (you guessed it) princesses and castles and ponies.  I'm glad my gag reflex held through those.

When she was ready, we went back to the garage and she climbed into the car and was coached on climbing around in the car to find different ways to get out and *most importantly* how to get to the drivers seat and honk the horn until help comes.  Big Boy got the lesson as well.  They enjoyed it and were both leery of honking the horn, especially on the minivan where it took stacking the hands on top of each other and pushing with their body weight on it, a la CPR style.

SO..... parents out there let this be an advisory to you.  Honey Girl was in a safe place in the garage.  There was no stranger danger.  It was a cool day and the garage door was shut.  She was only down there for a few minutes, much like any other exodus process when a diaper needs to be changed or an item needs to be retrieved from inside.  This time, she had to go potty and it changed everything.  Be sure to give the kids the tools to know how to get out of the car and how to scream for help when no one will be able to hear their voices.  Also, don't secure the kids in their seats until your definitely on your way.  Honey Girl was free to move about the car when this incident occurred, but still... common sense and all.

The next day Honey Girl managed to close her hand in the sliding door of the Odyssey.  Now, since Big Boy had already blazed that trail over a year ago, we managed that one just fine and once she felt better we joked a bit about how she needed to make her peace with the car gods.  That, and she need not be injured to use mom's bath salts.