Training the Other End

            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.