Years before I had children, I dreaded this part of motherhood. I knew I'd be a pro at handling mud, clutter, general messiness, bloody noses, skinned knees, bee stings... I was ready for all of that. Heck, I even knew that explosive diapers would be no match for my supermom alter-ego. Potty training? Sure. Accidents? Bring them on. Two year olds painting with feces? Absolutely.
This is thanks, in part, to the fact that I did so much babysitting/nannying while growing up. Wiping a stranger's child's butt for a living has a way of callousing you toward all other horrifying things in life.
If I'm being honest, when facing most of those things in real life, they are much more terrifying than my naive 16-year-old brain thought they would be, but that isn't the point. The point IS; even at 16 I knew that the somewhere in the dark, shadowy, ugly places of my future the moment would inevitably come that my children would expel through their mouths that which they had just consumed and that it would be far worse than any other horrible happening ever.
This morning I had a meeting with destiny.
I gave my baby a bottle of milk this morning because I needed an extra few minutes to wake up and usually a bottle will buy me those minutes. I never expected, as I walked sleepily back into my room to wake up, that I'd be seeing that milk again so soon.
Twenty minutes later, awake and cheerful, I went to get my boy for a morning filled with laughter, singing and tickle fights.
Then it happened.
I smelled it first. Then I saw it. The barf. I'm not talking about that gunk that newborns hoark up on a
(no. I completely take that last sentence back.)
Also, he had rolled in it. Because just puking all over the entire right side of his bed, his bumpers and somehow the wall, wasn't gross enough. No, he also needed to paint with it and smear it all over his face and squish it into the strands of his soft hair.
It was then that I cursed the universe for having created this reality in which Shem had to work early today. Only today. Out of any of the days in this week. It had to be today. The cursed day. In which my innocence died.
Two hours and several buckets of scalding hot, soapy water later, the smell was entirely eradicated from my house and order had been restored, Luke was bathed and (kind of) fed. He was hungry, but not presumably because of his icky tummy. So breakfast greatly consisted of his throwing dry toast on the floor and spitting applesauce at me as a thank you for cleaning up his puke. Also, the dust pan was lost because he likes to play with it and put it who-knows-where when he's done, so sweeping up the bread crumbs was another fun adventure brought to you in part by my one-year-old.
I have no idea why he's sick. But I think it has something to do with the fact that he likes sucking on tables when we go out to eat.
So, that's how my day was.
How was yours?
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