The Missing Pills

My son gets carsick.  A lovely opener, I know, but it is what's on my mind today.  About a year and a half ago we discovered, during a very unpleasant several hour long drive to my parent's house, just how carsick he gets.  Ever since then we have given him a pill to prevent nausea every time we are planning on a long, or particularly curvy drive.  The pills work like magic, and we are always careful to keep them on hand.  Today I was packing us up for a quick weekend trip to visit my parents, when I started to look for the pills.  Suddenly, I knew exactly where they were.  They were in a zip lock back in Nick's car.  Nick's car was in Albuquerque.  I was not.

After panicking for a minute, I told myself it would be okay.  Christian would probably nap the whole way, and maybe he wouldn't get sick.  I did not believe myself for a second.  I loaded the kids in the car, draped a towel over Christian, and crossed my fingers.  He fell asleep before we were out of the driveway, and I thought that I might be in the clear.  About halfway through our trip he started to stir, and moan, with a very familiar look on his face.  I braced myself.

Somehow I lucked out and he fell back asleep for a while.  He woke up a while later, and although he didn't look great, he had a little color and I managed to distract him for awhile.  Then, about ten minutes from my mom's house, all color drained from his face, and I just knew it was all over.  But I decided I was smarter than the carsickness.  I pulled over, ran to the other side of the car, and got Christian out of his seat like my life depended on it.  I held him up with his face in the wind and held my breath.  Slowly, his cheeks became pink again, and he snuggled up against my chest.  We swayed in the breeze for a while, then I returned him to his seat, and continued on our way.  We made it with no further incident, and as I walked Christian into the house he said "I feel better mom."  Whew.  I have to say, as crazy as it may sound, being able to pull my son back from the brink of carsickness was amazingly beautiful, and made me feel a little awesome.  But I will never misplace his pills again.