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I’ve officially been a mother for two-and-a-half years now so really I should probably just be grateful I avoided it for as long as I have, especially since it seems to be a right of passage for mothers everywhere. I’m talking about the stomach flu. Not a my-tummy-hurts-can-I-have-another-Popsicle bug but the repeated vomiting that always starts in the middle of the night of the day you run out of laundry detergent. You know, the kind of flu characterized by the sound of puke hitting the wall from a distance of twenty paces? I have to give him this: my son has excellent marksmanship. If there were a contest for expelling one’s food from the last 72 hours and managing to hit both yourself and your brother who sleeps across the room, he would take the gold medal.

Not that I blame him, really. Who doesn’t want company when you wake up sick in the middle of the night? Which is how come I smell like vomit too. At first I tried to let him cry it out since he’s a year old and still doesn’t sleep through the night but after about ten minutes of crying I finally went in. What I found was my poor sweet baby rolling in a pile of well, you know. Now I’ve never been a sympathetic gagger but something about seeing my own child so sick sent me running to the bathroom. Or maybe it was the odiferous cloud permeating the room. Whatever. Either way I had to haul my husband out of bed and into the action. After all, what dad would want to miss this milestone? First All Night Barf-a-Thon. They should make a commemorative plaque for that or at least a button. Tie tack shaped like a toilet, anyone? Strangely, he wasn’t in the mood to thank me for including him in this Important Parenting Moment. Holding the baby at arm’s length while I stripped the crib, he mumbled helpful insights like, “I think he’s sick,” and “He looks like he’s going to blow chunks again.” This last statement sent me running back to the baby just in time to be the recipient of a most charming smile followed by a belch that we will probably be hearing from the EPA about when it reaches communities downwind of us. Which I estimate will be in about twelve hours. The news is probably tracking the cloud with their Doppler Radar at this very moment.

I don’t feel bad for them though. In fact, I’m pretty sure this “community” business is exactly what got us into this mess in the first place. Sick toddlers should be registered with the State Department as disseminating forces of biological agents of, if not destruction, then at least disability. The stomach flu has been making the rounds of my children’s friends but of course I, in a superstitious haze of Purel and Kleenex, thought my own house safe. Apparently not. “Maybe you won’t get it,” my sister and mother both say when I call them to whine. (After all, the only thing that can make me feel the tiniest bit better about being woken up by my sick child is to call and wake my own mother up with stories about my sick child.) Right. We’re talking about the child who stares lovingly into my eyes and then sneezes directly into my face, taking care to then pat my cheeks with his wet hands to ensure maximum germ distribution. This is the child whose favorite game is to use his chubby adorable fingers to pry open my lips and stick half-digested fish crackers in my mouth. (Where do they go? Why does mommy make that funny noise?)

Of course my fate is sealed and so is my husband’s, bless his heart. This is reality at its best and worst. (Shout-out to NBC: send the Fear Factor couples over to my house during Puke Fest 2005 and I guarantee you’ll keep your prize money. Trust me, those bikinis don’t hold a lot of bodily fluids.) And at the end of all the nastiness, endless loads of laundry and three solid days of bleaching every touchable surface, there will be no trophy, no plaque, no car behind curtain three or trip for two (that’s two adults, thank you) to the Bahamas. Instead we will have three days of up-close and personal family togetherness. We will have bonded because we have seen the worst of what each person’s body can produce and not only still love them but even let them sleep in our bed when theirs is out of commission - with a towel of course, I’m not insane. At least not yet.
- posted by Charlotte @ 11:03 AM