20 1/2 pounds

This weekend we went with our pal to the zoo, but we decided to make one more trip out there. (It's free to go if you have a membership, and we're all about doing free stuff.) Mia slept most of the way there and then started to stir as we pulled into the parking lot. Leigh and I were chatting when all of a sudden BLEHGHHHEHGHH!

Oh yeah. She puked. Everywhere. The volume was almost inconceivable.

We took the first spot we could find and tried to pull off her clothes without spreading the muck even more. It was horrible. Horrible, horrible, horrible. People always say, "It's not so bad when it's your own kid!" While that might be true on some occasions, this was not one of those occasions.

Long story short, Mia ended up standing in the parking lot in nothing but a diaper and socks for a few minutes while we tried to bag up everything that could be washed. We dug up old clothes of hers from the back, and of course they were all too small. But a clean pair of high-waters is better than a pukey pair of fitted pants.

We scraped everything out as best we could, but we had no other option but to plop her back down in her gross car seat. There was no way I was not buckling her up to drive all the way home. She kind of whimper-cried the whole way, and I rode in the back with her.

Leigh took her inside for a bath while I pulled out the entire car seat, which was soaked through to the base. The sheer physics of the puke's reach were amazing.

After trying to rinse it out, I went inside to talk to Leigh. There was no way to clean the straps, and Mia was getting really close to the threshold where she could ride in her big girl car seat. She's not quite 22 pounds, but surely she was close enough for the seat to be safe, right? There was no way we could afford a whole new car seat for a two-pound duration.

We reluctantly agreed to install the big car seat. As I was strapping it in, I was delighted to find out that the threshold is actually 20 pounds! And Mia is 20 1/2 pounds! Mia was quite excited about this development. Here's a picture of her first ride as a big girl:

Seriously, though. She better not puke on this car seat. This is the last one she gets.