Take Two

I've begun to fear there is a lesson I'm not learning well with regard to cleaning up vomit, particularly between the hours after midnight and before daybreak, and that is the reason why I'm being allowed to repeat it after only eight months. There were no concrete warnings; no fever, no chills, no complaints of sore throat or snivels, no decrease in energy level, just the faint sound of hurling in the quiet of dark, followed by the click of a light switch and the thrashing lid of a toilet seat, and then more hurling. This is all I get after one child decides to be gluttonous with a bag of chocolate chip cookies at a high school varsity basketball game only a few hours before forcing down an ample helping of red beets at her favorite restaurant before asking me if mine tasted funny. You betcha.

There has now been enough vomitshed to declare the area between my youngster's beds the Projectile Zone, as this is where the majority of spewing erupts. Stomach acid has no sympathy, no pity, no compassion for a mother that cleans carpet on all fours at 4:00 a.m. I've got the puke stains to prove it.

Sixteen hours later at dinner....someone asks the question, "Did you take pictures?" Either my family has reached a new kind of low, or they see something in my personality that I haven't quite discovered yet about myself. Yes, of course. I'll just grab my camera. First I need to smear it into the carpet a little more so I can focus on that mangled noodle right in the middle there. Then I'll call out to my precious little chunk spitter heaving in the bathroom to hold it in for a minute longer so she can come back and stand near the puke pile. "Oh, honey...there isn't enough barf on your pajamas. Here, just let me rub a little of this on you."

Okay. I did really good this time. I didn't react or get upset. I didn't curse under my breath. I didn't tell my daughter she would never eat dessert again, and I didn't make her take a picture in her vomit.

I'm done with this lesson now.

RIGHT?