Tuesday
morning, I was lying in bed, taking a few more minutes to doze and enjoy the
waking up process. My little cherub came in and promptly went to the bathroom,
as is her pattern without prompting. Score,
I thought to myself. I had wrapped my head in my tiny heating pad to block
out the sun and was beginning to doze again.
She climbed
up on the bed with me and was holding my hand. The birds were singing, the sun
was obviously shining too much for my early morning liking and I heard a little
cough sneeze sounding thing. Strange. I heard it again, but it sounded like
there was a lot of mucous behind the cough sneeze thing. I took off my improvised
bitch mask to behold my daughter staring at me wide eyed while an orange wad of
vomit began to slowly flow out of her mouth. I assume it was slow, it was like a
slow-motion collision. In. My. Bed.
I did what
any parent would do; I panicked. In my panic, I forgot that the volume of my
hand is much smaller than the volume of the average four-year-old’s stomach.
Strangely, I don’t remember how I changed positions across a king size bed so
quickly. Usually I take at least a minute to roll across to snooze Wade’s alarm
when he forgets to shut it off and goes for a shower. But on this day, I was
moving at superhero speed. Hand full, I rushed to my bathroom to rinse my hand
off in the sink. I was horrified by the lumps that would make a plumber cry out
in distress. I channeled this plumber and may have shouted something along the
lines of “fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.” The drain was unhappy. I
was unhappy. I would have to deal with that later.
Hand
emptied and rinsed, I ran to the hall closet, stepping on something wet. I needed
something to start the clean-up off of her and more importantly, Wade’s side of
the bed. I started freaking out more due to my overlooking buying paper towel the
last time I was at Costco. I took a breath, since the air in the hall was not
filled with the stench of yesterday’s meals; KD, hotdog, watermelon, oranges,
et al. I was thinking marginally clearer and started to grab face cloths. I
picked up a white one and immediately put it back. Too light. I picked the dark
coloured cloths and a hand towel to transport the mess without dropping any on
the floor. I ran back to the bedroom and stepped in something wet on the way to
Wade’s side of the bed. She was sitting as I had left her. She was in a puddle
of orange rancid vomit. It was in her hair, on her jammies, and ON MY FUCKING
BED.
I started
to gently mop her arm, explaining that I would get most of it off and then she would
have to go to the shower. She weakly protested and I patiently explained,
through the cloud of stink threatening to gag me, that she needed to take a
shower to clean the puke off. She let out a sigh of resignation and I continued
to squeegee the mess off of her with more cloths. Once I was satisfied that I
wouldn’t leave a Hansel and Gretel-esc trail of puke on the carpet, I carefully
lifted her out of the bed. There was a large puddle of puke left behind which
caused a flashback to when I dated a guy in my first college adventure and he
had drank too much and consumed a burrito and, well, you get the picture. It
seems to be my lot in life to have the people I care about ralph in the bed
which I’m occupying.
Once we
were in the bathroom, the clothing removal process began. I started with the easy
part on the bottom. No poop. Phew! Then I started to take off the shirt. As
always happens with a kid who expects to be stripped, she raised her hands and
I pulled her shirt over her head. And regretted it immediately. There was a
small volcanic eruption of vomit which went in all directions around the
bathroom. I dropped the shirt in the sink and picked up the chunks off the
floor with toilet paper because it’s flushable. I put her in the shower and
assured her I would be right back.
Knowing
what I know of stain management, I needed to get the bed stripped down and in
the washer. I started moving the pillows to see what had been chosen by the
shitty Barf Gods. Wade’s pillow took a hit, the duvet cover and the fitted
sheet. I slowly peeled back the fitted sheet to reveal the mattress cover. It
had gone through the sheet and made it to the mattress cover. I slowly peeled
back the mattress cover. Now I was feeling like the cast of Alien when the alien
bleeds its acid blood through several levels of the ship. Did it make it to the
hull? The mattress was free of puke. Thank-you, mattress cover! I ran
downstairs and soaked everything with Resolve stain remover, hoping that it
would do the job. Normally, I would spritz one side of the stain and move on.
Not today. This was a beautiful white sheet and mattress cover. I sprayed the
crap out of both sides. It went into the washer (yep THAT washer) on the heavy
cycle. I didn’t flinch at the hour and a half that displayed on the timer. This
was a serious stain and needed serious time in the spa. But the nasty cleaning business in the bathroom. This load would
have more disgusting occupants.
Remembering
my little sweetie was standing naked in the shower I ran back upstairs. I hosed
her off. Her hair was gross. I dumped the shampoo directly on her head in a
quantity that would make a salon hair washer suggest that I was using too much.
Once she was scrubbed and rinsed, I left her wrapped in a towel in the tub,
just in case there was another bought of barfing on deck.
I was
dreading the walk back to my bathroom to take care of the sink. This time I
grabbed the back-up roll of paper towel we have in her bathroom. I rounded the
corner and looked at the sink. In that moment I actually missed shit. Shit was predictable
in colour and behaviour in a sink. This one looked like I had done dishes in
the sink without scraping them off first. I sighed and went to work. I started to
gag and regained my composure. Into the garbage that went. The garbage was then
immediately removed to the deck outside. Then there were the puke containing
vessels of cloth in her bathroom.
I had to
employ the plunging and flushing technique from our not so distant past. I
started to do the dirty work and my child had perked up. She very observantly
pointed out “that’s my puke.” Thanks,
Captain Obvious. I plunged her pajamas and nearly puked myself. I pushed it
down and kept going. Then I ran the whole mess down to the anxiously awaiting washer.
There were still chunks. I shrugged, it can’t be as bad as that carpet, right?
I hit the start button and ran back up to get my kid out of the shower and into
warm clothes.
Fast
forward to the late afternoon. The sheets were clean, but there were remnants
within the washer that I am sure I will be picking out for weeks.
I had to run to school to give a
presentation to eager new anatomy students and left instructions to keep the food
stuffs clear and easy on the tummy. I came home and she had mostly finished a
decent sized portion of yogurt and raspberries. The feeder of the contra ban
went off to a work function, leaving me with a ticking timebomb. I fed her some
chicken soup. Within minutes she was standing by me in the living room with the
look that I became familiar with back in my EMT days. “You’re going to puke,
aren’t you?” Her chin wiggled just so in response. “Bathroom! Quick!” She ran. She
opened the door. She lifted the lid. She sounded like she was emptying a full
mop bucket. After calmly pausing my show, for I believed that she fully
comprehended the concept of puking into the toilet, I joined her only to find
more mess. She forgot to lift the seat. I signed. I cleaned. I texted her dad
photos of the aftermath.
Bedtime
involved flipping the cloth shower curtain over the curtain rod, moving the bathmat
out of the bathroom, eliminating tripping hazards and leaving her bathroom
light on. Thankfully, there were no incidents overnight. We need to eat more
ice cream for the buckets.
I now have bitch mask trust
issues.
