the one where Sam throws up on me

You won’t even believe me when I tell you what time the boys woke up this morning. Eight. Fif. Teen. (!!!) 8:15, people!!

Todd and I both enjoyed a late wake-up, because of a long, ongoing discussion we’ve been having. The argument concerns whether we’d prefer to wake up gradually (like, say, over a span of one and a half hours, with smoke detector-like beeps every nine minutes or so to keep us from really settling into deep slumber), or – brace yourself for this crazy idea – at the actual time one of us needs to get up. This particular morning, I’m pretty sure I threatened Todd with his life if he continued these shenanigans of snoozing again and again. So he just turned the alarm off at 5:30, and both of us gloriously overslept like we were livin’ it up on a luxury vacation.

Which we are, basically.

Anyway, when I got the boys up, the three of us climbed onto our cozy green rocking chair together and started to rock. We do this everyday, for at least fifteen wonderful seconds, and then Sam starts giggling (not in a cute way, but like a seventh-grade-boy-being-naughty-in-church-way) and Ty asks repeatedly for a stuffed animal jammed between the crib rails and starts squirming down, and Sam bonks his head against Ty’s on “accident,” and I sort of begin gritting my teeth as I’m singing Jesus Loves Me. That’s how it usually goes.

But today, this particular morning, I realized that I had gotten through a complete verse of the song with both children still nestled close and still beside me. Oh, this is nice, I thought, I just love being a mom.

They were so calm, and precious, that I was just about to begin a new hymn, when…I heard gagging beside me.

And then, well, you know.

Blech. And blech, and blech, and blech again. It was a doozy. We all sat there stunned. Ty got down and said, “What Sam doing Mommy?” in a sing-song kind of voice.

I can’t explain how I feel when someone throws up without sounding crazy. Something inside me just jumps into business mode. Like when there’s an international crisis and the President calls his cabinet in the oval office for a brainstorm.

I get this wave of adrenaline, and start wiping faces, and administering sips of water, and Lysol-ing surfaces and disinfecting clothing. It’s almost…fun. {I know, crazy.}

Anyways, this particular stomach bug was a really odd. I think I scared it with my aggression. Soon, Sam was asking for breakfast, and by 10:30 had eaten a bowl of oatmeal, two sausage links, a banana, a chicken patty, and an orange.

All of which I fought desperately to resist picturing in regurgitated form.

So the day, again, took an odd twist when at 12:15, I found myself riding a bike, pulling two kids in a wagon behind me (one with a bizarre stomach bug), in the semi-rain around the neighborhood, four days before Christmas. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

Anyone driven one of these? You feel like an ox plowing the fields. No, literally. It is the physical equivalent of reaping the harvests with a yoke around your loins. I don’t know if yokes go around loins, but that just sounded right.

The boys love it. They squeal and put their hands up like they’re on a roller coaster.

And Sam does what he always does when he’s happy…he talks, and asks a million questions.

At first, it was super-cute. Mommy, are we going SO fast? Mommy, how do you go so fast? Mom, is this fun? And other things that made me feel a little more like an awesome triathlete and less like an ox.

But today, I was just tired. I was trying to be a good sport, but truly, I felt like I was the one that had had the stomach bug. (How is that??) Plus, it’s embarrassing. I’m wearing a helmet, dressed in total  “mom-wear” sweatshirt and waist-riding yoga pants. And, to top it off, I’m not strong enough to pedal the wagon all the way up the hills, so I have to walk beside my bike looking like a big giant wimp of a dweeb. Obviously I am a dweeb, because I just used that word. Dweeb. Dweeb. Who says that.

Anyways.

Here are a sampling of the questions that I received, and attempted to answer, during this humiliating and physically exerting workout:

• Mom, was that the garbage man?
• Mom, why are those dogs barking?
• Mom, why are we going up this hill?
• Mom, why do you stand up like that?
• Mom, Ty keeps sticking his hands out. Can you make him put them back in?
• Mom, how did you learn how to ride this bike?
• Mom, what is it called when you stand up on the bike?
• Mom is it called balancing? Is that what you’re doing?
• Mom, how do you ride that bike?
• (Sam, I’m working really hard here. I can’t answer anymore questions. Ask Ty questions.)
• Ty, how do you ride that bike? (Silence.) Mom, he didn’t know. Mom, I’m going to have to ask you the questions.
• Why do our heads go back and forth when you go slow?
• Mom, why are you going slow? (x3, over and over, louder and louder, until I answer that I am working as hard as I can.)
• Mom, why did you step off the bike mom?
• Mom, is it hard work? What would happen if you didn’t step off the bike?

See, that is the thing about motherhood. You can call it a lot of things, but you can’t call it predictable. You never know when you wake up in the morning what the day will hold. Maybe you’ll be scraping puke off a fuzzy green cushion! Maybe you’ll be undergoing a domestic version of the Inquisition while pedaling your hiney off around the neighborhood! Maybe you’ll do both! It’s an adventure!!

In the meantime, as far as our household is concerned, Todd and I have disinfected our sheets and are giving ourselves probiotics in IV-form. Stay tuned to find out how this bug manifests itself in adult form! Be sure to subscribe to updates so you don’t miss this one!

 

 

 

 

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