It’s True What They Say About Puke

Your own kid’s puke that is.

I’ve heard people say that when your own kid is puking you aren’t overcome with being grossed out because you’re too busy being concerned. I found it hard to wrap my head around that concept. But today I experienced it first-hand, and it turns out it’s true!

Our adventures in barfdom began at 7AM when Mark went to get Kate up. She was sitting up happily in her crib which was spattered in vomit. Her hair was sticking out in every direction like Phyllis Diller, but chunky. And the stench. Oy! Poor gal didn’t even realize she could have gotten some major attention given the scenario. Until of course we started fretted and cued her to whine and cry. Being demanding has a learning curve I guess.

Mark hosed Kate down as I dashed out the door to a client breakfast. I’d been up in the wee hours, dragged myself out of bed and got all dressed up. It was particularly trying, seeing as it was a work-from-home day, and I would have otherwise stayed in jeans and been slovenly–and slept in as late as possible.

I hopped on the highway, got ensnared in a massive traffic pile-up in the approach to a tunnel, then realized I was on the wrong highway. So I sat in tunnel traffic two ways (argh!!!) since I had to turn around after going through tunnel one way and sit in SF-bound traffic to get back through the other way to finally arrive somewhere near my starting point 25 minutes later, and running desperately late.

I called the client once I was on the correct highway where there was clearly an accident since traffic was moving at 5MPH. Omitting the barf-covered baby and the wrong-highway misadventure I blamed my lateness on the current traffic hell realm and promised into her voicemail that I’d be there as soon as I could.

She called back 10 minutes later. Traffic was loosening up and I was moving along. I was even feeling somewhat optomistic about my progress. Then, laughing, she said she thought I must be having “a senior moment” and informed me that our breakfast meeting was set for NEXT Wednesday. At which point, stomach sinking with the thought that this whole nightmare was utterly avoidable, I glanced across the highway where I’d have to turn around to head home, to see traffic at a standstill.

An hour and a half after having left the house–two and a half hours after having woken up–I returned, stripped off my work clothes, tossed on my jeans, and started my work day. Lovely.

Shelly was home watching Kate and informed me she had, as Mark and I call it, “broken poopies” Poor girl was wrangling with the old Both Ends Flu.

So by late afternoon when a rash started developing on her face, reminding me of that weird hoof and mouth virus that Baby Owen just had, I headed to the pediatrician. Where of course she was perky and energetic and babbling with the doctor about kitties and pigs and such. In fact, she pointed to the doctor and proclaimed “doggie” in the waiting room, which all the nurses at the front desk found incredibly funny. I guess they like seeing the docs cut down to size sometimes, especially by one-year-olds.

They weighed Kate and the doc who saw her looked in her file to see when she was weighed last. 10 days ago. Yes, I’d just brought her in for her soupy cough and we’d seen another of the pediatricians. So of course I was then convinced he was making some notation in her chart like, “Alert: Mother possibly suffers from Munchausen’s by Proxy.”

On the way home with Kate seeming so totally fine, I decided to stop at the little local market to get some dinner stuff. As I go to unsnap Kate from her seat she mutters something, turns to me and gushes forth a sea of puke. Then does it again, but more the second time. She was drenched, as was the the carseat, and eventually me–who was desperately trying to determine if I should let her be, or try to unbuckle her mid-barf to hold her head forward. And once she was done the scariness and the yucky taste etc. had her howling. Not to mention me trying clumsily to drag her out of her seat onto my lap.

And it’s true. Even when I finally freed and hugged her wetly to me, I didn’t squeam about the nastiness at all. I was just thinking of my poor baby. And questioning my own judgement that she was okay enough to run into the store with. (No, I didn’t still go in!)

When we got home, the poor little sweetie and I had some quiet time reading books, then I gave her her second bath of the day. And even after two Silkwood-strength wash-downs she still had the vague stench of stomach acid in her hair. And it didn’t gross me out one bit.