Well, my 4-year-old is sick. She’s got one of those congested coughs that just sounds painful. Like: oh, poor darling! let me give you a hug AFTER you’re done coughing that crap up because it sounds like it just HURTS and I don’t want to catch this one. You poor baby! But don’t touch me, okay? ‘Cause I don’t want to cough like that. Ever again. If possible.
These are my more maternal moments, let me tell you. When the kids are sick, I just dive right in, don’t I?
It brings to mind one night a few years back, when my 4-year-old was still a baby and I was out having a Mom’s Night Out. During that one hour in which I was Not At Home, she came down with some sort of stomach bug that caused her to projectile vomit all over the hallway, her door, and not to mention RegularDad himself as he dashed through the upstairs with her in his arms, desperately trying to make it to the non-carpeted bathroom.
All I know is that just as I’d relaxed into my second cup of coffee, and the fabulous talk of poets and poetry, my cell phone started beeping. (It was a minor miracle that the thing was actually on and charged in the first place, because it usually wasn’t. Or if it was, I’d always manage to forget the thing back at the house. Cell-phone savvy I’ll never be, my friends. I seem to have missed that happy little boat. If someone were to ever hand me something like a Blackberry and ask me to use it, my head would probably explode.)
So, after a few surprised, frantic minutes of digging through my purse I managed to find the thing and turn it on, knowing it was RegularDad, because no one else had my number.
“Hello?” I said.
“Gah!” he yelled. “Gah!!!!”
“Hon? Is everything okay?”
“GAH! Guh! Guh….”
“Hon?”
“GATORADE!!!” he finally gasped out. “You need to stop on your way home at get LOTS OF GATORADE!!!”
“Um…okay…”
“The baby’s sick! She just puked all over the place! It’s EVERYWHERE! On the walls! ON ME!”
“Okay, hon. It’s okay. I’m on my way.”
“You don’t need to leave early. Just stop and get some Gatorade on your way home, okay?”
“Pedialyte. Sure.”
“What?”
“Pedialyte. You mean Pedialyte, hon. Babies don’t drink Gatorade.”
“WHAT?”
He was at the end of his rope, I could tell. All I had to do was say the word ‘Pedialyte’ one more time and he’d snap. Envision, if you will, that scene at the beginning of Pulp Fiction when Samuel L. Jackson is hollering: SAY ‘WHAT’ AGAIN! to that kid before blowing him away, and now imagine RegularDad covered in spit-up, holding a sick baby and yelling into the phone: SAY ‘PEDIALYTE’ AGAIN!
Yeah, it would have been just. like. that.
“Gatorade,” I said. “Right.”
“It’s in my EAR!” he yelled. “I gotta go!”
“Okay. Bye.”
I hung up and filled in the women sitting around the table looking at me funny. Then we wrapped up our poetry session as quick as we could and I stopped at the store for some Pedialyte. I got two flavors. Just in case.
Things were quiet back at the house. I took the baby from him and surveyed the situation. Yes, indeed, the walls in the upstairs hallway were splattered with quite a bit of…well…you know. And so was RegularDad’s head. And shoulders. And a little bit had run down his back. But the baby was smiling and RegularDad was calmer.
“Sorry,” he said. “But it was just…EVERYWHERE.”
“That’s okay.”
“I’m gonna go take a shower.”
“Sure.”
He disappeared into our bedroom. I set the baby down on the floor with some toys and grabbed a box of baby wipes and started using the wipes to clean off the walls. By the time RegularDad was out of the shower, I was almost done.
“Wow,” he said. “You’re using wipes?”
“Sure,” I said. “Why not?”
I sent him downstairs to fill a bottle with some (ahem) Pedialyte, and we put the baby to bed.
There have been times when I’ve been the one paralized by puke as well. But RegularDad was there to back me up. We complement each other well in this way, as we do in so many, many others.
Now, a few years later, our youngest is sick again. But at least it’s not a stomach bug. These little colds come and go. On sick days, we have PJ-All-Day Day. No one has to get dressed if they don’t want to. And if you want to watch the Little Mermaid over and over again, that’s okay.
Just get well soon, kid. But don’t sneeze on me. Okay?
Poor thing…. Hope she’s feeling better soon! Hugs.
I hope she feels better soon!
I have gotten the frantic call saying “the baby is throwing up, can you come home”. I don’t get it, my husband can train the best of them, board a ship for seizure, but you give him a baby throwing up and he is spilling all the state secrets.
I hope your little one feels better quickly. Im all for the Pj all day thing too. We do it quite often, even when we just feel a bit lazy.
As for the throw up. Ewww. We had a lovely time last weekend, cleaning all the carpet in the youngest boys room. Literally had to pull everything out as he had been sick all over the whole room. Not Nice.
I hope she’s better soon.
The first time DS projectile vomited, at 3, and into the toilet pretty well, I just stood there and hysterically laughed. So much for loving mom award :-).
My daughter had pyloric stenosis and projectile vomited for first few months of life. It was terrible. Once I took her to the store and she did it on the shelves of food. I was mortified. Poor baby! I hope your little one is feeling better soon and that you don’t get sick!
Thanks everyone. She’s doing better today, and so far, I haven’t caught it. Of course, now that I’ve said that, I’ll be sick as a dog tomorrow.
Bless her heart and tell regular dad I’m so sorry for laughing on his behalf. I know it wasn’t funny to him, but when your on the other end and it’s all over it can be funny. Not the situation, but the reactions of people. We have been there and done that.
Glad she feels better and hope you don’t get sick.