This morning I stumbled out of bed as usual. I really shouldn't be stumbling since I did get about 10 hours of sleep, but it's still hard to get up. As I walked down the hall to get a shower1 I thought I smelled, well, vomit. It had been raining the night before, and since we live in a log cabin sometimes it smells sort of cedar-y, although that is usually in the summer when it is hot and humid. I spent a few moments trying to rationalize why I smelled vomit in the hallway, and trying to make the rain/cedar smells = throw up. I was confused.
On the way back to my room I smelled the vomit again, and started worrying about K. Maybe he had been sick last night and hadn't wanted to wake me?2 Why did it smell so strongly? What is that smell???
(I know you see what's coming. But it's not yet occurring to me to attach the smell to E. I can't explain why. I guess that's why this is a Most Embarrassing Mothering Moment.)
I get dressed. And I go to get E. out of bed. And I open the door. And I think, "DUH! Are you the dumbest mother ever or what? THIS ROOM IS THE SOURCE OF THE VOMIT SMELL. WHY DID IT TAKE YOU SO LONG TO REALIZE THAT?" Well, in my own defense, E. is only two, and I kind of assumed that a smell that strong would have occasioned some crying or some outburst of the type that would have led us, his parents, to visit his room and discover the source of the distress.3
I walk in. I am hit with a wall of Vomity Smell. I get panicky and say, "E., are you ok?" And that sweet child smiles up at me and says, "Mommy. Yes." I look at him. He has dried vomit smeared across his face. He has vomit encrusted in his hair. His entire crib sheet is covered in vomit and there is vomit on both headboards. His "guy" is covered in vomit, as though he had been well loved during the crisis.
I mean, really, the crib looks like there was some unanticipated eruption of a previously undiscovered Vomit Volcano. It's one more bad spoof of that scene in The Exorcist where someone spews vomit all over the room. (I've never seen The Exorcist so I can't be any more specific than that.) Really, the disaster is approaching Pompeiian proportions. And there sits E., not realizing that anything is wrong, and smiling up at me as he does every day. How I love that little Quiet Vomit Spewing Little Guy.
I got him into the tub post haste. I called K. to tell him what bad parents we are. I scrubbed E. down, trying to alleviate the vomit smell radiating from him. I tried to explain what had happened, and tell E. that "When your tummy hurts, or you throw up, you need to call for Mommy or Daddy." We practiced calling: "Daddy!" "Mommy!" and E.'s usual, "Daddy-Mommy!" I did laundry, including every single guy that inhabits the bed. I scrubbed his crib and crib mattress. I tried to decide how in the world he puked that much without a sound. I fed him sparingly. I worried that our Quiet Vomit Spewing Little Guy will someday vomit silently in his sleep and silently choke to death.
So I guess the lesson is "When you think you smell vomit, it's probably vomit." Search the house for it, and if you look long enough, you'll find it.
1 We do have a bathroom attached to our bedroom. But we have a big soaker tub (not for me, I don't take baths unless under duress) and a shower head too but no shower curtain because it just wouldn't look right. And so we don't shower in the "master bath". I know--it really doesn't make much sense.
2 K. got up and left early today, before E. and I got up. This is a very unusual occurrence for us. We generally all get up together between 8:30 and 9. We are a family that really likes our sleep. And we like to stare blearily at each other in the morning. But K. had dashed off to work on this morning.
3 To my knowledge, E. has only thrown up twice in his life and both times were at night and he didn't wake us up. He is The Quiet Vomiter. It's a gift, maybe from my side of the family.
Posted by grrlTravels at December 13, 2004 4:41 PM