Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Barf and Snot

Iain is at it again with his bodily functions. With a dripping nose for the past couple of days, the knowledge that his sinus cavity was filling up was thrown upon us at the dinner table. He had very little appetite, so the oyster crackers were being moved from the bowl to the place mat, the place mat to the bowl and then made into a tower. Realizing how funny he was, he started to laugh but a little too much force through the nose and out came the snot. He was so proud of himself, and startling to have a serious giggle, that more came gushing out. I was holding Fiona at the dinner table, and Jake realized that he was the closest to the bathroom to get to a Kleenex.

I was hoping for some faster movement to get the Kleenex, so during the few seconds that it did take, Iain felt that he had accomplished a great feat, and wanted to run his fingers through his "progress." More laughing and snorting ensued, and Jake and I were besides ourselves with trying to keep the smiles wiped clean off of our faces. Iain kept snorting, but thankfully Jake was now catching everything and whisking it away. Iain realized that if he plunged his fingers up in his nose and snorted again, things didn't happen. This would have to be the cause and effect lessons that plague our daily lives.

After a delicious dinner of homemade chicken noodles soup with those homemade noodles from my childhood that I just had the most intense craving, I was rushing through the house to find my knitting projects and fly out the door to meet some friends for some knitting time at Caribou Coffee. I felt free as a bird, getting into my Cadillac sans car seats and I was sending some little prayers for Jake and the babies to have a good night. Jake would merely have to get them ready for bed and entertain them for maybe an hour, and I desperately needed some adult conversation.

I was late getting to Caribou, since our snot session took more time than I had allotted, and I found two ladies knitting and visiting with a coffee shop junkie. This older woman was intrigued by our knitting, and since she is a painter and a fellow knitter, was delighted to see that we had brought our fiber arts to join in an old fashioned knitting circle. She was quite long winded, but I could probably have listened to her tell stories about her life (dangerous liaisons with a man in Atlanta back in the day) and her plans for the week (making cranberry brandy for Christmas presents-sign me up!). I was very afraid when Husband called about 9:30 and I couldn't seem to find my phone in my bag. I was frantic that Fiona was shrieking at him and he couldn't get her down, and I would need to rush home and then try to soothe her. I quickly called him back to find out that he had found a Boston Terrier in need of adoption. He was web surfing.

Shortly after this phone call, I was on my way home and talking to him again. He had been researching soap making and had decided that we should consider buying soap supplies and essential oils and make a bunch of soap! The children were asleep and I was home in time to watch the end of the news while I frosted a banana cake.

I had a bad feeling that the night would make a turn for the worst, and at 12ish Fiona was crying and wanting to eat. I took care of the situation and got her tucked in. Their room was quite chilly, so Jake brought up the space heater for the night since our debate over starting the furnace was won by the fact that the furnace filter is in desperate need of changing. At about 4:45am, I woke up realizing that Jake was leaving for something...so I called after him. He said he was putting Iain back to bed. I thought he was crazy, since he had been talking in his sleep earlier in the night. Something about "Pick out something that is ripe. Well, I don't see any over here. Yeah, pick that one." OK. So Iain starts to have a serious fit when Jake put him back to bed, so Jake started in on a diaper change and I felt it was time to offer some help when I realized that Jake was running with Iain into the bathroom. *Dum da DUMmmm!* It was puke. If a night can just plummet with one single thing, it would be the heaving noise followed by splattering, rushing around, and lots of crying. Jake stood him by the toilet, and I was wide awake to do my motherly consoling to a little man who was hysterical, pajamas half on and half off.


I am typically ruthless when it comes to puke. Iain is a projectile puker, and as heartless as it sounds, I leave him in his crib to purge that way everything is contained in the sheets. The walls of my house and the jewelry store, and the floors of my house and Walgreens have seen Iain's puke and my realization that puke can be contained in a bed sheet-when my toddler is too little to understand the bucket and move to the toilet rules of barf-this is what we have come to learn in our short time with babies puking. Heaven help me though! If the rules about children are: Your children will be the embodiment of what you were to your parents, plus 10 fold, I had just buckle in for the barf. There are too many stories to remember, and I will need my gas mask, I am sure. One of my funniest childhood memories is driving home from school in our huge green station wagon, and someone had puked. My father can not handle puke vapors, so he was driving down Muscatine with his head hanging out the window. Since I am the Mama, I think I am going to have to put my head down and power through. That is just the way it goes.

1 comment:

ChurchPunkMom said...

Yep. That IS just the way it goes. ;)

Hope your barf-fest is just as shortlived as ours was!