Stomach bug, stomach bug. LICE. LICE. Stomach bug.
I wish it were the beginning of some amazing Haiku, at the end of which I win a billion dollars, but really it refers to the last six days. Somewhere in there I had a dream about a man-eating shark. Foreshadowing?
I don’t tell you my woes of puke and communicable disease because I think they are even close to a big deal, but because doing so keeps me from the kind of silly, silly self-pity that I must aggressively avoid. After all, a little vomit never hurt anybody. It brutalizes off-white carpeting though.
Midnight (or 2 a.m., I really have no idea)
- I hear vomit sounds and commotion.
- I pretend this isn’t happening for longer than I should.
- I am so tired from the previous 48 hours of delousing and laundry that I fall asleep.
6 a.m. (I know this to be accurate because I was so pissed to be awake)
- I hear moaning.
- I go to my baby (who is actually 8).
- She is topless and out of sorts.
- I smell puke. I see bedding in disarray.
- There is some dry heaving.
- We get to the bathroom. And nothing.
As Saturday begins, I know in my heart of hearts that the wreckage to the carpet might be catastrophic. I also know that there is no way we are getting a new one before these people who vomit on floors head off to college, the Peace Corps or early, ill-fated marriages.
Kids are messy. They get LICE, puke, don’t flush toilets and far too many of them are confounded as to the difference between a garbage receptacle and a living room floor.
It is often difficult for me not to sweat this stuff. It is small, and so are these girls. They won’t always be. I know this, yet knowing it doesn’t always keep me from becoming curiously unhinged.
In no time at all the puker rallies like only a small puker can. Though sleep deprived and most likely dehydrated, she wants to go to the park. Any park.