Alex and I made a last minute decision to visit Beth and Dan in Chicago this weekend. We left the house on Friday afternoon with plans to arrive by an Abby-appropriate dinner time. The trip started smoothly enough, Alex driving, Abby napping, and me staring out the window. The only thing we forgot was Abby's sippy cup full of water. After about an hour we had to stop for a potty break and gas. I went inside with Abby and perused the water bottle aisle, looking for a suitable sippy cup stand-in. I was on the verge of buying a regular little water bottle with a pop top when I spotted these tiny, half-sized water bottles with pop-tops. It was filled with something called "bug juice." I glanced at the label: "100% vitamin C." Sounds good. I saw it had some sugar, but what kid's drink doesn't? So I bought it. The second I gave it to her, Abby started chugging. She didn't stop until it was 75% gone. Then she gave it to me and said "no more." I thought it strange that she would quit, especially since she then proceeded to snack on raisins and goldfish crackers and still refused the "juice" when offered to her. A half hour later Abby was VERY crabby. Nothing would make her happy. I assumed she hadn't slept long enough, but the real reason became abundantly obviously shortly thereafter, when she started spewing puke all over the car. Seat-belted into the front seat, there wasn't much I could do. I tried to catch what I could with some kleenex (which was woefully inadequate), but mostly just had to watch as it came out, and kept coming out. She was clearly a bit disturbed by the turn of events. I think 'bewildered' probably describes it best. This is the first time she's vomited in her life. I kept calmly telling her it was ok, that she was going to be fine and then I would turn my head away while I gagged on my own stomach contents. We finally found an exit and pulled into a gas station. I cleaned up Abby in the grossest gas station bathroom in existence while Alex attempted to clean her car seat. We did pretty well, if I do say so myself. Abby seemed much happier afterward. After cleaning, Alex and I looked in more detail at the "bug juice" label. 150 calories from sugar in 1 serving. The bottle, which again, was the HALF the size of a regular pop bottle, contained 1.25 servings. Alex tasted what was left and almost vomited himself. Lesson learned. Don't assume that things made for kids are good for kids.
The offending drink.
The rest of the trip was pretty smooth, barring the last 10 miles or so where traffic slowed us to a crawl and both of us had to pee so bad we were contemplating using the "bug juice" bottle to relieve ourselves. But it wasn't big enough.
Traffic.
Alex's feelings at this point in the drive.
A view of the city. And traffic.
That night, after spending some quality time thoroughly cleaning Abby's car seat, we had delicious Chicago style deep dish pizza for dinner. Perfect.
2 comments:
Wow. So happy I've never experienced that side of sugar.
Ugh--you can be glad she of rid of it or she'd have been bouncing all night with that much sugar.
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