What a night!

I must say that I thought I was sort of prepared to be a parent. I'm the second oldest of five, and helped out in the house with the younger ones, so I've seen my share of poop and pee and puke. I also like to baby-sit as a teenager, furthering my experience with each of the "3 P's" listed above.

When E was a baby, she did not spit-up a lot. Hardly at all actually. She did hose me down twice, to the degree that a shower was an emergency side effect. And she also hosed down MommaJo once, with the same side effect. Other than that, nothing really on the puking part of life with E.

Last night, all of that changed.

We have all been suffering a bit from our trip to LA, being tired and in general a little out of sorts. E had a fever one night and one day, with no other indications of illness....weird, I thought, at the time. But ibuprofen and acetaminophen doses later, fever was gone. That was 2 days ago.

Yesterday, she was a bit on the weepy side, and we had gone out pretty early on in the morning to scout out the location of my class (that I will be going to next week) in Frisco. From there we went to the Mall to check on the antique booth and pick up a disc containing photos for the Mall website. Then off to a quick lunch and home for a nap.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. The hubby took her to the book store. This is their little weekend tradition. They go to Half-Priced Books, and she gets to pick out 1-2 books. She really enjoys it. And then back home again. Finally, a little dinner, pj's and then off to bed.

One hour later, I hear her. This is odd. Usually, we don't hear a peep out of her for at least 4-5 hours. But there she goes again, kind of coughing and weeping, and then a low crying. I had turned in early this night, basically right after I put her down, I put myself down.

So I hear the hubby go into her room to check on her.....then he yells for Backup! I come hurrying down to hall to discover E has puked all over herself, her sheets, her pillows, her blankets, her Binky's, EVERYTHING! Holy Cow! What the heck is this all about!!! It is so bad that the hubby takes her into our shower to try to get it out of her hair, which leaves me on Cleanup Duty with the bedroom. I'm hurrying around, stripping the bed and pillows, and getting out clean sheets, trying to figure out what the heck caused this. I set up the bed for her to be able to go back to sleep tonight, and then go to our room to see how they are doing. Then off to the laundry room with all of the offending elements.

When I get back to our room the second time, she is out and dressed and laying on a towel in our bed, fighting to keep her eyes open. She is SO tired, and just wants to be unconscious. After a few moments, the hubby takes her to her room and puts some towels across the pillows and bed. When he returns, he wonders if the milk had gone bad, and goes to check it out. Nope, milk is fine.

So then we try to go to bed again. This lasts about 2 1/2 hours, then I hear E coughing again. Then whimpering. I poke the hubby to prod him to consciousness. He goes and checks on her. Yep. You guessed it. Puke.....again. She mostly got it on the towel this time, but still got it on the new set of clean sheets and accessories. He wipes her up, applies new towels to the bedding, and then another towel for her to use as a blanket for the remainder of the night. Good thinking. I would have never thought of that one.

So back to bed. She went about 1-2 hours, and I hear her again. I, once again poke the husband. He politely declines the opportunity to check on her. He's right, it's my turn. Off I go to check. She is okay except for a missing Binky. I retrieve it, and pass it on to her. She immediately goes right back out. No Puke, thank God.

So back to bed, again. From here, she lasted until the morning, but BOY DID SHE SMELL GREAT! :o)

She started calling out to us, to come and release her from her room, which is the normal pattern of the day. However, to her shock and dismay, and under full out protest, the hubby got her out of bed this morning and went straight into the shower with her. NOT to the couch to watch YouTube Videos of Sesame Street. NOT to a bottle of Chocolate Milk. NOT to a warm blanket and good snuggling with Papa. But straight to the shower, where there was water and soap and more water and soap....and conditioner....and more water!

While this was going on, I got up and was ready to receive her from the shower. It works out best if one parent is IN the shower with her, to have the other parent OUT of the shower to take her, so the first parent can also dry off and get dressed.

So out she came. While I was drying her off, the hubby retrieved some clean clothes for her, and I got her dressed for the day. All of this activity before Milk and Singing ABC's is just weird to her.

From here, I brought her out to the hubby who was gearing up the YouTube and had a bottle of juice waiting.....just not ready to test out her ability to contain Milk at this point.

As for me, you guessed it. Laundry Duty. Off to E's room, to once again strip the bed and pillows. Except this time, there are no clean sheets to put on. I only bought 2 sets when we purchased E's bed, so we will just have to wait for the first set to come out of the dryer.

As of this post, she is running around the living room, playing, turning flips and generally being her happy little self! As if last night never happened. Or at least did not happen to her! How great to be able to forget about all of that grossness so quickly. How great to be able to let go of the 'out of sorts' morning, and just get back to the business of being happy!

All in all, I would not trade my position as her MOM for anything...Including the 3 P's!

I love you E!