Read at your own risk

WARNING: This blog entry is graphic. It deals with child illness and really gross stuff. I considered watering it down, but that really doesn't do the story justice. So I am keeping it real, and if you start to get queasy at ALL, stop reading immediately. Return in a couple of days when the content will be a little easier to stomach.

Last night, we were getting ready to put the kids to bed. I had just finished reading a book to Ethan, and Abby brought hers over to me. Ethan cleverly went to his dad to get a second reading. They were (thankfully) in the leather chair, about 3 pages in, when Ethan--with no warning whatsoever--spit up a little. Matt yelped and I jumped up to get a towel. I was three steps in when Ethan let loose with the largest volume of vomit I have ever seen come out of one person (except for the time Abby threw up watching American Idol and sprayed the walls of three rooms of our house, which is another story). Unfortunately the last thing he had eaten was Oreos, so it was all black, which is really creepy. Matt (who is normally pretty chill about such things) was really grossed out. I kind of lost my sensibilities for a second and rather than running for a bath towel, I for some reason went to the kitchen and grabbed 12 dish towels and dumped them on top of Matt and Ethan and the pile-o-vomit. It didn't help much, though it did provide another surface for him to soil with his second large spray.

Matt was turning greener by the minute, and I certainly didn't want him to contribute to the rapidly accumulating puke, so I grabbed Ethan under his arms and held him out as far away from me as I could. I bolted for the bathroom, praying the entire time that he was done. I started the bath and got him undressed (if there is something more difficult than trying to undress a squirmy boy whose clothes are covered in throw-up while trying not to get it all over yourself, I don't want to know about it). He acted like nothing had happened and played away in the bath. Matt had changed and was working at cleaning up the chair, floor, and book. Abby was curled in a fetal position on the couch, completely traumatized by witnessing the entire thing.

Finally, we got the boy and the house cleaned up, and both kids in bed. We know that kids sometimes just throw up, and really didn't think he was sick--it was just one of those things. When we were ready to go to bed, I went to check on Ethan. To my surprise, he was sound asleep on his floor. He is quite a squirmer when he sleeps, so I wasn't too surprised. I went to pick him up, and my hands touched not just boy, but goo. DANG it. Sure enough, he had thrown up all over his bed, then apparently just climbed onto the floor to sleep somewhere clean, so blase is my boy about regurgitating. So! Clean the boy, change his sheets, tuck him in AGAIN. We hooked up the baby monitor so we would know if anything happened during the night.

It did. Around 2 AM, I heard him whimper. Because I'm lazy like that, I poked Matt and urgently requested that he go check on Ethan. He made it halfway when I heard the heaving. Double dang. Once again, I found myself stripping my son and putting him in the bath. He was downright enjoying it. We were running out of clean pajamas and bed sheets. That marked the end of the pukefest. He's been find today, and seems to look back on last night with fond memories. He is such a boy.

I am sure glad that's over--both the actual events and recapping them. Do you know how hard it is to come up with a variety of synonyms for vomit?