Earlier this week I was up visiting my dear friend of –oh my– 15 years now.  We made a day of it as she lives far enough away that we have to plan in advance.

We spent the day practicing an indoor set up for a special event mini session she will be having for spring portraits.. and of-course we also spent time chatting , sharing stories, feeding and occupying  our 5 kids total.

Our kids love each other, thank goodness and we even talked them into posing for us in-between playing.

Time came to leave as she was expecting company for her youngest birthday dinner.

We cleaned up our equipment and moved her furniture back and looked over to my oldest who was holding his belly on their couch.

She asked me if he was okay.  Being a non-alarmist type parent,  I told her he just needed to use the restroom.

He refused and we got in to our car packed full of equipment and drove to the end of their block when he shouted “go back, please I want to use the bathroom now”

We were back at her door and he slid inside without so much as a hello.

He then came back out and we were almost on our way again when unexpectedly,  he laid on the floor and proceeded to puke on her family room carpet.  I am talking gross, smelly hot dog chunks all over her freshly cleaned room–minutes before her family was going to arrive.

I wanted to cry.  I tried to scoop it up and was pleading with her to forgive me.  I was mortified.

She was calm and kept saying “don’t worry about it ” and rushed him to her bathroom ( I think her Pediatric Nurse alter ego took over)

The smell quickly filled her house and we chased the other kiddos up stairs as not to induce a “barf-o-rama”

She broke out her steam cleaner and phone and asked her family if they could possibly come over another night this week.

OH MY GOODNESS…she was rescheduling her son’s birthday.  I really wanted to die.  Her response was “He is three, he doesn’t know if his birthday is today or tomorrow”

She was so sweet, she helped me with C (who threw up 2 more times)  cleaned up the carpet and then asked if I wanted to stay for dinner——

Her hubby came home, not super pleased but took pity on us as well and even cooked me some of the best fajitas I have EVER had.

CAN YOU BELIEVE THERE ARE FRIENDS LIKE THESE OUT THERE!    Oh how I love them, seriously!

We  eventually got back on the road with an old tupperware and rag in tow (and yes C did make use of it on the way home as well, jeeze that was less than awesome).  He stayed home from school yesterday and after never breaking a fever, and keeping all his food down was declared cured and sent to school today.

It must have been something he ate,  jokingly my hubby has told him he is allergic to candy and sugar.  We will see how long that lasts!

Anyway  I just wanted to share an image we caught before the chaos…

Here she is with her sweet son, on his “real”  Birthday that was ruined by my son’s puke- fest.