Tang It! I Forgot!

If you've ever seen the film, "Finding Nemo," then you're familiar with this type of fish. It's a blue tang, and in the film, her name is Dory, and she has a short term memory problem, as in,

Dory: I suffer from short-term memory loss. It runs in my family... At least I think it does... hm. Where *are* they?

This is not unlike my oldest son, although he isn't blue and isn't much of a swimmer.

Although, he is wearing blue in that picture, and has cute freckles and a sweet smile on his face, so maybe he looks more like Dory than I originally thought.

He is like her in one really troubling way though - the short term memory thing. Let me illustrate for you... (warning, the following story involves, uhm, talking about a certain, oh let's just say it, vomit, so if you have a problem with that you might want to skip to the end.)

On Saturday, we got up and had breakfast and decided to head to Target before the crowds got too, well, crowded and get a few things for the house. When Junebug woke up, he said he was starving, and he helped himself to a really large bowl of Raisin Bran and I made him a fried egg white.

(this is what is known as foreshadowing...)

Everyone got dressed and we got into the car and headed out. Before we actually got off our street, I turned around to check seat belts and noticed that Junebug didn't look quite right.

"Are you okay?"

"I don't feel very well." (Note to self...he NEVER says that. Something ain't right.)

"What's wrong?"

"My stomach doesn't feel good."

"Do you need to go to the bathroom?"

"No. It just doesn't feel good."

"Should we go back and just let Dad and D go to the store?"

"No. I'm okay."

So. Off we go. The whole way over to the store, I'm checking on him, watching him curl up his legs and grimace, asking questions about how he feels, including the most important..."DO YOU NEED TO THROW UP?"

He tells me no, repeatedly, and we decide he probably has a little gas and just needs to go to the bathroom once we get to Target (TMI, I know...bear with me.)

It was raining when we got there, so Dr. SmartyPants dropped us off at the door and went to find a parking place. The boys and I walked inside and started heading immediately for the bathroom. As we're walking, I looked down at Junebug and saw immediately that he was about to revisit his Raisin Bran and I started the run to the bathrooms.

We didn't make it.

My poor baby became one of those kids that throw up in public places.

Repeatedly.

By the way - in case you're worried - I asked his permission to post this story, and he said it was fine...because it really is going to illustrate a point about his BROTHER.

Which is coming now...

I finally got the poor child to the bathroom, and as the door was closing, I looked over my shoulder and saw Doodlebug standing, eyes wide open in horror, hands clasped over his mouth. I told him to wait there until his dad came in, that we'd be back out whenever we could.

Junebug finished up his, uhm, process, and I cleaned him (and me) up and we finally were able to leave the bathroom. As we walked up, we saw the amazingly kind ladies from Target cleaning up the trail with such sweet dispositions - I mean, really - I couldn't do it. I thanked them and apologized and thanked and apologized and then looked around for Doodlebug.

Who was nowhere to be found.

Panic. Deep breaths. Find cell phone. See missed call from the Smarty.

Okay, I think. They've gone to get the car.

Phone starts ringing. I answer.

"Hey!"

"Hey. You guys out of the bathroom?"

"Yes. Poor baby."

"What do you mean? Oh. OH. Was that him?"

"WHERE ARE YOU?"

"Looking at DVDs. We'll be right there."

He walked around the corner, saw Junebug's white face, and immediately turned back to D.

"Why didn't you tell me that he was the kid that threw up in the store? You know...when we walked by it and I said, 'Eww,' and you said, 'Yeah, I know!' "

"Well. I forgot."

He forgot. HE FORGOT.

Lord help me.

Epilogue:

We were riding in the car yesterday, on our way back to Target to finish what we didn't quite get started the day before, and I was saying I thought I'd have to blog this event, because I couldn't believe that D hadn't told his dad...because it was pretty dang important information to pass along. Here's what the boys had to say about it:

D: "Sorry. I'm a really bad communicator."

J: "Trust me. He is."