Face it. Barf happens. And you need a way to clean it up.
Allow me to introduce my champion of chunks — my darling daughter#2 (Dd2). It’s a little ironic that she is such a barf queen now, because as an infant, she was the LEAST vomituous (I just made up that word I think) of my three children when it came to baby barf and spit up. As she grew older she thoroughly surpassed her older siblings in the heave-ho department. Most of her barfage is due to the dreaded result of car sickness. Poor child… motion sickness bags are her mainstay.
She is our baroness of barf. The terror of the technicolor yawn. A wizard at whistling beef. A trendsetter at tossing cookies. The heralder of heaving. Sweetheart of the stomach tsunami. A goddess at shouting groceries.
We have found many ways to deal with her up-chuck when it presents its self. We try to avoid it when possible using many of these useful Car-sickness Tips and Remedies, but sometimes barf happens anyway. When it does, I am now armed with a vomit clean-up kit for travel.
The kit contains vomit-absorbent/odor neutralizer, a scoop and scraper for rapid pick up, antimicrobial hand wipes, heavy duty dry cloth and non-latex gloves for clean-up. It also has a plastic bag for removal and disposal, a clear zipper bag for convenient storage, and a barf bag and absorbent lap pad to protect surfaces (although it’s probably too late to use these by the time you need the kit). The odor neutralizer smells really good, or at least it does now before the barf has been added.
Where has this been all my life? (all of her life, rather). It has everything needed to clean up when I’m on the road or in the air, and it fits easily into a carry-on bag or in my glove box. I’m SO excited about it that I can hardly contain myself.
That’s right folks, I can’t wait for my kid to hurl in the car so I can try it.
. . . Is that wrong?
UPDATE: Here is a Follow up to this article !
The “Recipe”:
- 6 Girl Scouts
- 1 Girl Scout leader
- Field trip to the local food bank to do community service sorting canned goods
- Large helping of silliness and giggles
Final product:
Minivan with barf on the floor.
Since I first posted my story on Carsickness Blows, where I sing the praises of a wonderful product I had recently obtained, I had not yet had the opportunity to even use it. ….Until now. On a recent Girl Scout field trip with my minivan full of giggly girls, the laughter got a little bit out of hand until one of them finally lost it — all over the floor in the back of the van. The mess was everywhere, but I had no fear.
In fact, I was secretly delighted. At last I had a chance to try my yak pack, a clean up kit for car owners who travel with kids prone to erupt into bouts of carsickness. The first thing I did was pass the darling Girl Scout a barf bag, so she could contain any further pukage until we got home (I keep plenty of these on hand in my van). Once the girls were safely delivered, it was time for the real test.
During the cleanup, I used the little scoop to remove most of the chunks while wearing the nifty non-latex gloves (my favorite part!!). Then I sprinkled the absorbent powder that did a fantastic job of neutralizing the odor. When it dried, I was able to vacuum it all, and my car smelled good as new! It even passed my daughters’ sniff test. To be honest, my minivan never did have that “new car smell” since I bought it used, but the point is that it didn’t smell like vomit anymore.
I have enough of the absorbent materiel left over for a future cleanup should it ever be necessary. And given the fact that I will be hauling children around in my van for many years to come, I’m sure that the upchuck will abound in my days to come.
Yes, Virginia – there is a cleanup kit for carsickness. It’s a Bio hazard yak pack. I give it a thumbs up!
UPDATE to the Update:
Sadly, my supplier for the Yack Pack is no longer available, however, I have updated the links with another similar product that works just as well, but without the cool name on the branding. Additionally, I want to make sure you know where to keep your barf bags well stocked!
