Kids and Motion Sickness

We are heading on vacation shortly and a few family members are talking about going on a Whale Watch. I would love to go and think it would be a blast. Well that is if we didn’t have a puker among the bunch. Poor Isabelle has been cursed with motion sickness since she was a mere 14 months old. I can remember vividly the first time she got car sick. It was Christmas Eve and we were on our way to my aunt and uncle’s house. She was our first, still a baby, and had never even thrown up before and all of a sudden out of nowhere got sick. We were totally unprepared for it but cleaned things up the best we could after stopping at a McDonald’s to get napkins. She then spent that Christmas Eve in mismatched pajamas instead of the adorable outfit I had picked out for her.

Then shortly afterwards it happened again, and again, and again, and again. From the time she was 14 months old until she was about 2 and a half she threw up on ANY trip over 45 minutes.  Add in to that a trip with any type of stop and go traffic and that time was cut in half. Now we can easily get to a lot of places around us in less than that time but we have lots of family and friends that live in surrounding states that we visit frequently. It became a known joke that if we were coming to make sure you had your washing machine empty so that we could wash the car seat cover upon arrival. We bought all kinds of covers, pads, and floor mats to help the cause but it was still a lot of vomit. She was so young in the beginning that she couldn’t tell us that she felt sick so it was a nightmare. By the time we knew she was ill, she was actively throwing up and one of us was trying to catch the remainder in a nearby bucket. Driving alone with her? Forget about it.

Oh, and her motion sickness didn’t stop with just car sickness. She got sick over any kind of motion. I remember one night after a long day when she was having a hard time getting to sleep I decided to sit with her in the rocking chair. I don’t know what I was thinking on that one because sure enough a few minutes later she threw up all over me. She also used to get sick while swinging on swings. This summer at 4 years old is the first time that she can actually swing and truly love it without having any side effects. Last year we went to Story Land and she wasn’t able to go on any of the rides because the first one we went on (which was slow and had no turns) made her feel sick. Poor kid.

I did talk to her doctor about it and was advised to give her Benadryl on longer car trips (too young for Dramamine at the onset). Luckily, that worked very well.  Who knew that Benadryl worked to help with nausea? Of course, we didn’t want to be constantly drugging her so we only did it on out of state trips but it was still a huge lifesaver for us.

As she has gotten older her motion sickness has gotten much better. She is generally okay on long car trips (even without being drugged) unless the trip is really windy or there is lots of traffic. It took us a long time to get here though and a whale watch is definitely not in the cards for us anytime soon!

Road trip, anyone?

Terrible 4s?!

Isabelle is our oldest and has always been great. She was an easy baby, an ahead of the game toddler, a smart preschooler, and the list goes on and on. We’ve been lucky – until now. For the last few weeks, something has happened. She has turned into a little devil. She does not listen. I repeat, she does not listen. She argues with me over the tiniest things. She knows things are wrong and she does them anyway. I tell her to stop doing something and she turns and looks me in the eye to defiantly say “No, I will not stop.” She fights with her brothers over everything and freely hits or kicks them to get her way. I constantly hear her say, “Henry, I am NEVER playing with you again.” This is then followed by the sound of Henry crying. As if that isn’t enough she also is throwing elbows and pushing when they walk by for no reason. She is straight up just being mean to them! Luckily, she only chooses to demonstrate this “awesome” behavior at home to her brothers. If she’s going to be a nightmare I’d prefer for her to be a nightmare at home and not while out with friends. But is a nightmare really my only option? Can I get that picture perfect, amazing little girl back? Please, pretty please?

Since the Time Out chair was becoming her new vacation spot, today I decided to up the ante.  While we were out she was being ridiculously defiant so I told her she was not allowed to swing on the swing set for the rest of the day today or tomorrow. Swinging on the new swing set is her favorite thing to do so this hit hard. In hindsight, I should have told her this after she was in the car and not while we were still approaching it since she FLIPPED OUT when I told her. Oh well, two can play this game. Devil Mommy is coming out and I’m going to win even if I have to play dirty. Game on.

Gonna be a swing-less couple of days!

Maybe 3 Kids Is Enough

I’ve wrote before how deep down I would really love to have another baby. When people ask if we “are done” I always say yes. Because we are done – or at least that’s what I’ve been trying to convince myself of. In the back of my mind though, I secretly thought that when Daniel turned two I could try to convince my husband to have another baby. Please note, this would take A LOT of convincing. I figured by the time he was two I would have had enough time to come up with a concrete plan (think power point presentation complete with colorful graphs) that I could present to the hubs about how it would be possible for us to have another child. The plan would include either an addition to the house or a baby sleeping in a dresser drawer – the details would need to be ironed out. 

But now as we are fast approaching Daniel’s second birthday (only a few weeks away) I don’t find myself feverishly working on my presentation. Instead, I find myself relishing the sweet spot that we are in. The spot where the kids are getting bigger (yes, they are still just 4, 3, and 1!). The spot where we can (somewhat) easily get out of the house. The spot where I can look into our future and think of fun family trips to take that would be enjoyable as opposed to a nightmare. The spot where I can go to BBQs and half-heartedly watch the kids in the yard while sipping on Sangria. The spot where I’m not  following crawling babies around making sure they don’t eat too much grass. The spot where my fingers are mine and not guides to help new walkers explore the yard. There are no panic moments when I realize that I haven’t seen the baby for a few minutes and he/she may be in the street, in a trash barrel, or touching the grill. I’m really enjoying where we are right now. I honestly can’t imagine getting pregnant and “starting over” again and I never dreamed I would feel this way at this point. Maybe, just maybe, three kids is enough and maybe I’m okay with that.

Maybe all I need is a crime fighting alien, a princess, and a diaper wearing tot trying to make a call on his fake phone

Who Remembers “The Brave Little Toaster”?

I was choosing a family friendly movie from Mommy Bear Media for us to enjoy and I stumbled across “The Brave Little Toaster”.  I LOVED that movie when I was a kid. I can remember going to the video store (remember when you had to go there to rent a VHS?!) and running to the aisle hoping the movie would be there. So as soon as I saw it, I knew I had to buy it. We watched it as a family since my husband also had fond memories of it.  A courageous toaster who heads out to the city to find his master with a group of mismatched appliances – what’s not to love?  And love we did – every one of us! It’s now the top requested movie in our house. So it just goes to show, I had amazing taste in movies as a child!

 

*Mommy Bear Media is a mom owned company providing good, clean movies and television shows at a great price with FREE shipping. Go check them out!*

 *As a Premiere Blogger for Mommy Bear Media, I received a coupon for a free movie. All opinions are my own*