Motion sickness

We have been trying to keep busy and beat the winter blues! Vivi and I went on 2 road trips, one with my mom to visit my grandpa up north, and this past weekend we went with Eric down to Ohio to visit his sister, her husband, and their 3 girls. But more on that in a minute. First I have a disgusting parenting story to tell ;)

On the drive up north, we stopped at McDonald's for lunch, and ate in so we could stretch our legs. I got fries with my meal, so Vivi got apple slices with her happy meal and we shared. Then we got back in the car, and about an hour later, Vivi threw up all over herself and her car seat. It looked and smelled like apples, which we had never gotten from McDonald's before-they were pre-peeled and sliced and in a plastic bag. I thought maybe the way they preserved the apples had upset her stomach. After pulling over in the middle of nowhere to change her and clean her car seat a little, she had cheered up and we finished the drive without another incident. We had a great visit with my grandpa, Vivi loved playing with his dogs, especially Jake, who followed her around the house and was SO good and gentle. He's the kind of dog that makes you want to get a dog (don't worry, we won't-yet).

Fast forward to the drive to Ohio. The drive was going great-we left right at Vivi's nap time so she slept and Eric and I actually got a couple of hours of uninterrupted talking time. When she woke up, I climbed back to sit with her and we shared some crackers and an apple. We were 20 minutes away from Amanda's house when, yep, you guessed it, she threw up everywhere! She was soaked, I was soaked, her car seat was a mess...we pulled into a gas station where I changed my clothes and her clothes while Eric went inside and bought some lysol spray and some carpet freshener, and we tried to remember if she had eaten raw apples at any time between the 2 trips. I don't think she had, she's been on a kiwi-blueberry-strawberry-grapefruit kick lately and I think of those as being healthier than an apple, so I don't really offer apples to her. Usually an apple is part of my snack while she's napping. So we started thinking maybe she is allergic or intolerant to raw apples.

But, on the drive home from Ohio (it's an almost 4 hour drive) she didn't eat any raw apple, but about 3 hours into the drive, she started looking a little yellow and saying "belly...yuck". So we got off at the next exit and let her run around the parking lot of a 7-11 to get some fresh air.

We started thinking maybe it was a motion sickness thing. When we got home from Ohio, Eric took off the car seat cover (which, of course, is not machine washable, thank you Britax!) and scrubbed it in the shower and hung it to dry. It has thick padding so I knew it wouldn't dry fast and we'd be stuck at home on Monday, so I did an experiment and let her eat all the raw apple she wanted for breakfast. And...she was fine. So, motion sickness it is. Honestly, I was sort of hoping it was an apple allergy. It would suck, but it would be easier to avoid. Between Ohio and South Carolina, we already have multiple road trips built in to our year. Not to mention the 12+ hour flight to Ethiopia coming up...

I found a recipe for peppermint ginger candies, I'm going to make her some suckers and we'll experiment with that on our next trip. We also now travel with multiple extra outfits, plastic bags to contain yucky outfits, lysol and fabric refresher, and paper towels.

I also shared on facebook our little problem and a couple of other moms shared that when their child eats apples in the car they throw up. Orange colored crackers and popcorn were also mentioned, so we'll be sure to avoid those too!

Other than that little issue, we had a really fun visit with our Ohio family. Vivi LOVES her cousins and was so happy to play with them.  We also went to a great children's museum near their house that had lots of fun stuff for kids of all ages. She's already asking to go see them again.