Friendly Germs
My wife and I thought we had a scare when baby had an allergic reaction to nuts. Turns out there’s something scarier than hives and red welts on his face — vomiting! Last night, Dmitri projectile vomited a good portion of his dinner right onto the floor. I got down on my hands and knees to wipe it up, examining it like a scientist. It had this weird mucus-like consistency that wasn’t your normal spit up. Regular illness or demonic possession? Since his head wasn’t spinning round and round, we decided to call the pediatrician instead of the priest.
The pediatrician asked if Dmitri had eaten anything new. Funny you should ask, doc! We’d given him cherries earlier in the day. Come to think of it, he puked right after that meal, too, but just a little bit such that my wife and I didn’t think it was a big deal. I worried our baby was going to be bubble boy, allergic to everything in the world. I mean, cherries? There’re cherries in all kinds of delicious foods. Our baby would never know the joys of cherries jubilee or cherry cobbler. That made me a bit sad.
Fortunately, the pediatrician said it was highly unlikely an allergic reaction to cherries caused Dmitri to vomit. It was more likely some kind of stomach virus. I felt bad because I’m the resident gross person in our house who doesn’t do as good of a job washing his hands as he should be doing. Maybe it was after one of these half-ass washings that I touched one of his toys with germy hands, which then made it into his mouth. I mean, he has been putting everything into his mouth lately.
Luckily, there was someone else to blame except me — Dmitri’s new friends at the baby gym. Last week I wrote how Dmitri has been going to a baby gym to meet new babies and socialize. That’s all well and good except new babies mean new germs. He must’ve caught some kind of stomach bug when he went to baby gym because the vomiting started right afterwards. Fortunately, a little bit of Pedialyte did the trick, and the stomach bug was gone by the morning. Apparently, we need to get used to the baby being sick all the time, especially as he starts day care and then kindergarten. And it won’t be just baby who gets sick. My wife and I can expect to be sick all the time, too.
Great.
