It's a Hard-Knock Life

Last Saturday... where to begin. I was trying to steer this blog away from being a series of child-related disaster stories. But since I'm still trying to keep this blog in the "non-fiction" category, yet another child-related disaster is coming your way. Consider yourself forewarned.

Saturday was the first day of April General Conference. In case any of my 5 blog readers aren't members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, twice a year we cancel regular three-hour Sunday meetings and spend a whole weekend watching General Conference: eight hours of satellite broadcasts to the whole church (make that ten if you're a guy) over a two-day period. And you thought three hours was a lot of church, huh? :) Joking aside, I love General Conference. The prophet, the 12 apostles and other church leaders (including the leaders of the women's and Young Women's organizations) speak to us about what they feel is relevant for us to hear right now. It's also a nice chance to spend the weekend at home with the family.

We have a couple of Conference traditions: we print out a Conference activity book for the kids and we make "Monkey Bread": a caramel-y concoction of canned refrigerator biscuits, melted butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. (I know a lot of people who make homemade Cinnamon Rolls for their special "Conference treat" but after my last post I'm not comparing any more, okay? Besides, I baked it in a fancy bundt pan this year. That's totally as good as homemade.)

Having kids running around makes it a little bit harder to focus on the talks --and even with our best efforts we only made it through two of the four sessions over the actual weekend. (Hooray for DVRs!) But so far my favorite talks were Elder Uchdorf's talk on how we need to show more love and kindness to those around us-- even to people who are different than we are-- and judge others less. I also enjoyed the talks about mothers and daughters and the importance of a mother;s teaching in the home. But now I digress....

On Saturday afternoon, Dave left to go to the Priesthood session of Conference (for all the men 12 and up) and then had to go in to work after that. Not wanting to be stuck at home by myself with all of the kids on a Saturday, I decided to go out and kill some time hanging out at the local toy store and picking up a few things for the kids' Easter baskets. Except that by the time I figured out what I wanted and got it up to the counter to check out, the kids decided that the toys on display near the front were the most interesting and I had to casually wait for another 20 minutes before I could slyly get the presents paid for and to the car without them noticing.

I had plans to take Jared and Camryn to see a community production of "Annie" that night, so we drove through Taco Bell and then raced Jackson and Addy to the friend who was going to watch them for us. I must have been really hungry (I think I skipped lunch) because on the way back to go to the play, I impulsively decided that I absolutely HAD to have another Gordita to be able to make it through the play. So I drove through Taco Bell again (yes, the lady in the drive-through recognized me... that was kinda embarrassing), got my Gordita and we were off to the play with a whole three minutes to spare. So imagine how irked I was when I pulled out my Gordita and found a Chalupa in its place! Instead of soft yummy flatbread goodness (okay, 'flatbread goodness' is a little bit strong for Taco Bell, but remember-- I skipped lunch so I was STARVING), I found super-fried grease-o-rama. I didn't have time (or gall) enough to drive through the drive-through a third time. I took two bites and gave up.

Because of my drive-through shenanigans, we got to "Annie" one minute before it started. We parked and set off at a run for the entrance, inciting piercing shrieks from Camryn of "I can't run, Mom! It makes my stomach hurt!" (Don't you love six-year-olds?) We did manage to slip into some seats on the end of a row just as the overture started and I even got Jared to run to concessions to get some Junior Mints and Skittles to tide me over through the play.

The play was really cute and having learned my lesson after chasing Jackson around the back of "The Music Man" last summer before giving up at the end of the first act, I was really enjoying the play in Jackson's absence. But after the first act Camryn started to get really tired and cranky. I tried to get her to lay her head on my lap to go to sleep, but she didn't want to. She ended up curling up toward the back of her chair, so I went back to watching the show.

Then suddenly there was a noise-- like something spilling-- some people on the row behind us startled and a girl behind us reached for something by her shoe. In the dark it took me a few seconds to connect all the dots; I thought maybe Camryn had spilled a box of candy or something. So it wasn't until there was another burst of the "spilling" sound from Camryn's direction a second later that I realized it was not a box of Junior Mints but throw-up that was landing on the shoes of the poor couple behind us. Dots now connected, I snapped into action, grabbed Camryn and tried to furtively head for the back towards the bathroom. Our attempt at a quiet escape down the exit aisle was thwarted by a loud burst of projectile vomit that spectacularly sprayed in every direction from Camryn's lips. So much for trying to be subtle.

This probably sounds horrible, but I had to try really hard not to laugh. You know how in movies they have those stupid fake special-effects where barf sprays everywhere, totally unrealistically? That is exactly what it looked like, except it was real. (And if I thought too hard about the poor people behind us trying to wipe barf off of their shoes I would probably have burst into tears, so best not to go there for now). After a few remarkable bursts of barf, we made it safely to the bathroom, only to have Camryn let loose another spray all over the toilet stall. I'll spare you the remaining gory details of cleanup (although I have never been more annoyed with those stupid hands-free paper-towel dispensers that only give you 5 inches of paper towel at a time) and how the staff had to set up cones down most of the aisle to keep people from stepping in the mess/cleanup attempts and close down the entire bathroom (I have to hand it to the staff- they were incredibly gracious given the mess that we made).

The play was almost over at this point, so Cam and I decided to hang out and watch from the back by the bathroom door so Jared could finish the whole thing. (She felt much better at this point- who could blame her?). She turned to me and said, "Mom, I guess I probably ruined everything for you, huh?""Of course not, honey. Things like this just happen sometimes." And so they do.

The good news is that Camryn felt better after that and didn't throw up again. Nobody else in the whole house got sick or threw up. (Honestly, I wasn't trying to take a sick child to a community event to spread germs around.) Maybe it was just too many Skittles in one sitting. I'll never know. But I know we had one performance that we'll never forget.