Acid Wash
Saturday, October 21, 2006 at 01:08AM Warning: contains graphic imagery unsuitable for most readers who don't have small children.
If you didn't read the comments from two posts ago, Cheryl said a mere two words that got all of us Eighties Kids unpacking our Members Only jackets in anticipation: ACID WASH... you know, those jeans that looked like you'd been through the inevitable nuclear war with the [now former] Soviet Union and lived to tell about it. Yeah, well, that whole train of thought took on an entirely different meaning to me about six hours ago...
Little Man and his daddy were sparring in the Baby Cage (because after all, if you want to make it to the Octagon, you gotta start somewhere) when they apparently crossed the line. He spit up some of the sweet potatoes he'd eaten for lunch. "Aw, buddy!" we were quick to console him, "No fun!" We handled him a little more carefully, and we let him play alone in there for a bit while Mr. Nygren treated the spot on the carpet. When he started hollering at me, as he -- the baby, not his father -- is known to do when he's lonely, I didn't think much of it... until I saw another orange stain on the carpet in front of him. I wiped him down as Daddy went after the next stain with the steamer. He seemed okay. I gave him a couple bites of bread to settle his tummy. We went into the living room. I held him facing forward and was gently massaging his belly when he erupted again and vomited profusely into my hands.
Daddy pulled off his overshirt and started mopping our son and my hands with it. I took him upstairs -- again, the baby, not his father -- and got into the empty tub with him. I loosely swaddled him with a towel and put him in my lap, leaning him over the drain each time he started retching again.
I called my sister, who's been studying pathogens lately and warned me it might be the dreaded rotovirus (does it make you think "roto ROOTER"? it should), and that we just needed to be sure he didn't get dehydrated while his body hastily expelled the offending virus from both ends. Meanwhile, at my request, Mr. Nygren went to the store for electrolyte punch and saltine crackers.
Little Man would end up puking nine times in about two and a half hours... but it was somewhere between the sixth and seventh episode that it occurred to me: I was sitting in a bathtub, holding my vomiting eleven-month-old in my lap as he spewed bile onto the shins and cuffs of my brand new jeans. If he hadn't been in such good spirits between heaves, I would have felt bad for thinking this aloud:
"Funny, we were just talking about acid-washed jeans... though I doubt this is what Cheryl had in mind."
Daddy gave him two ounces of electrolyte drink as he'd read was recommended. I was wearing it on my ankles less than a minute later. We prayed over our Little Man and sent out a text message asking several other folks to do the same, and the vomiting stopped. A few minutes later we started administering tiny sips of the drink in five-minute increments, and when it had been an hour since the last bout, we changed him and put him to bed.
I slumped down the stairs towards the kitchen and my long-since-cold supper, still wearing recycled sweet potatoes and grape stuff on my shirt and cuffs, and had this thought:
Somebody damn well better give me my badge now. I've earned it.
Reader Comments (6)
I hope your little ne is feeling better today.
Oh, and the badge: well you don't officially earn that til they're grown adn the y come home adn want to spend time with you and you relate as two grown adults, but my mom tells me it's worth every throw-up incident. She says she'd do it all again, with all 6 of us.
Hang in there. The badge will come.
Love ya Kelly!
~ann
But you can have a sticker on your chart!
(minus the tile and soapdish...and the subject matter(fortunately that part's alreay cleaned up))
:oI