The boat jumps up and down on the waves like a volleyball leaping over a net. Even without the connection to my least favourite sport, I’m not feeling super amazing. I try to concentrate on the tour guide’s fun whale facts and the soft weight of my son’s head on my shoulder and not on my stomach.

“I don’t feel good,” my son says. I look down at him. His arms are hugging his stomach and he is staring at the bottom of the boat.

“I’ll go get a barf bag,” I tell him. I give him a gentle pat on his shoulder and walk up to the tour guide to ask her for one the bags that she waved around in the air and stuffed into the pocket of her fleece jacket at the start of the tour.

She is still reciting her whale facts, and she puts a finger up, indicating that I should wait. When she finishes her sentence, I ask her for one of the bags, but when I have it in my hand and I turn around, it is already too late.

My son’s vomit is all over the bottom of the boat. Another mom is sitting next to him and rubbing his back with concern. As I watch the scene with the empty barf bag in my hand, I feel that I have failed him.

I clean my son up with tiny, brown, ineffective paper towels. The smell and the rocking boat make my stomach want to empty itself as well, but I manage to hold it together.

When we get home from our trip a few days later, my son tells me that his favourite part was the whale watching tour.