Mommy Milestone: Puke

Anyone who knows me at all knows that I don't deal well with puke. Okay, that's an understatement. I deal with puke about as well as a mental patient, the kind that needs a straight jacket, deals with being plunked into the real world without medication. Yeah, I'm that freaked out by it. It was a subject that was actually addressed when Bryon and I talked about having children: as in, "can I handle it if I get morning sickness?" and "can I handle it if my children actually do vomit?" Laugh if you will, but I'm sure someone out there is equally phobic about vomit. No one out there really likes the old pile of stinky stuff, but I really, really would rather die, literally. I've stealthily avoided it so far. I didn't have morning sickness and I even lucked out with a kid who thought spitting up amounted to a bit of a burp bubble.

The run is over, folks. It started innocently enough with me cleaning the potty and putting him in time out for touching his poop, AGAIN. I think I see a pattern emerging, don't you? Regardless, he was neatly contained in his time out chair in the kitchen while I scrubbed the potty clean of the weirdly loose poo that had stuck to the bottom and wouldn't come loose (eewww!). I was already kind of convinced this kid had picked up a bug of some kind just from that alone! As I finished and came out to the kitchen to retrieve my little peanut what do I discover? Oh, nothing but that he'd vomited all over himself in the chair and was EATING IT!

"Sandwich came out mouth, mommy!" he said.

It was bad enough that the dog was licking it off of him, the floor and the sides of the chair; to see my own child picking bits of bologna off of his pant leg and eating it! Oh, there are no words. None.

All I can say is that I have survived my first brush with vomit. I cleaned it up. I did not die. I did not faint. I did not swoon. I did not even gag. But, I am glad that my hubby is back by dinnertime tonight to help me with the care and non-feeding of this sick kiddo as the amount of stuff that is coming out of him is surprising and foul.

Still, he's adorable. He's taking a liking to the bucket. And, he is a surprisingly energetic patient. Aren't kids supposed to be low-energy when they are sick?