EXPERTS

When your babies are small even the tiniest sniffle is reason to hunker down and shelter-in-place until the snot passes. This wears off around age three or when you have another child (whichever comes first). Eventually, when you text your friend before the playdate with a “he’s got a bit of a cold,” their response is “yep, mine too, see you soon!” In the dog days of summer or when you’re on day six of an historic snow, unless someone is in the hospital, the playdate is ON. This goes for pretty much all illness, except for the dreaded “stomach virus”… dum dum duuum.

If there is vomit or diarrhea involved, you stay on your side of the county and I’ll stay on mine. No, thank you! These are the things of nightmares. My son and I are currently enjoying this self-imposed quarantine. Yet another perfectly good day of school and my son is not attending. I hate winter.

It started around 3:30 am on Sunday morning. It was epic, with multiple locations and iterations. He must have eaten some candy that evening (the cousins were over that afternoon so who knows what they got into) because it was all beet red, adding a gory aspect to the experience. I’ll spare you the details, but this vomit extravaganza reminded me what good parents the Hubby and I can be when there is work to be done.

We literally sprung into action. I had new pajamas before my son was even in the bath. My hubby was already scrubbing the carpet (God bless him) by the time my son was clean and calm. BigBoy was asleep in our bed in about 20 minutes. With the next rounds, strategically placed towels were quickly disposed of and replaced with clean ones. I was appropriately maternal and soothing without getting caught in the spray. The Hubby was very attentive and good-natured about my son’s request that he sleep next to him on the floor. I got the bed with the associated pros and cons.

This expertise comes from practice of course. I remember when BigBoy had his first big middle of the night puke fest. I heard him on the monitor, ran in and immediately picked him up. Mistake #1. He promptly spewed the next eruption all down my back, on my clothes, in my hair. There were chunks of ham. I will always remember the chunks of ham. We were running around panicking like chickens with their heads cut off, or like new parents the first time their baby has a stomach virus.

Now we are experts. The Hubby is amazing at the clean up. He’s learned the tricks of the trade. In a flash he’s got towels, club soda, carpet cleaner and a kitchen scraper and tupperware if there are chunks to be dealt with. All while in the dark and without waking up BigGirl at all. She didn’t even stir. There was not even one speck of red in the morning or yellow or green. He even puts the rags to soak or directly in the washing machine. Very impressive.

We’ve been vomit free for about 13 hours now, so hopefully I won’t be washing and folding towels for days, but I’m trying not to feel too confident. I’m generally an optimist, but when it comes to a stomach virus, it pays to have your soda and scraper ready.