splash

An Easter Day that started with eating an entire chocolate bunny, multiple egg hunts, and topped off with a ham dinner was just not going to end well. Julia Ellen had a marvelous day scarfing down all the candy in her basket before 10am, then looking for plastic eggs all over the yard and house that each of her older siblings would hide, and having a nice bath before getting into her new pink polka dotted dress to go to 5:30 pm Mass. We took 2 cars because the boys got there extra early to serve and as the priest sprinkled us all with holy water from the aspergillum, Julia Ellen threw up. 

She not only barfed all down the back of my sweater and her dress, but when I quickly took her to the tiny bathroom to clean up and sat her on the toilet lid, she threw up again all over both of us and the floor. With nothing but coarse brown paper towels to clean up the mess and a miserable little girl on my hands, I sopped up the worst of it and asked the sacristan to fetch my purse and keys from our pew before taking her home in the truck. She got another bath, I took another shower and we both curled up in our  fuzzy jammies until the rest of the family returned home. 

Monday, I did call the church office and offer to come in and Lysol the heck out of the pew and the bathroom, but the nice lady said that these things happen and it would be taken care of. Perhaps next year I can avoid a repeat performance by just not buying 4 bags worth of Easter candy. I thought I was moving out of the stage of life of having to miss parts of Mass because of loud babies and cranky toddlers, but being the mommy of many sometimes means 2 steps forward and 1 step back.