When I got started in this mommyblogging racket, I was determined not to be just another chronicler of domestic banality.
I had such a unique perspective on parenting, you see: a stay-at-home dad whose background is half academic and half redneck. My every observation would be informed by my experiences in the rough-and-tumble world of construction, yet shaded by my analytical proclivities and literary pretensions.
It took about 18 months for that shit to dry up.
Today, I’m writing about puke.
The details of my situation might be different than other parents’, but the basic struggles are the same: fill the foodholes, contain excrement, schedule and attempt to enforce consciousness, provide stimulation, find the sweet spot between indulgence and neglect, manage emotions. I’ve lost whatever perspective I once had.
Having sufficiently rationalized the lack of originality or insight you will find here, I shall now proceed with my central argument:
A small child can produce a fuckload of barf.
Little Baby Jesus was kind to us in that he endowed our children with their mother’s near inability to vomit. I’m imagining a montage of all the inconvenient times and places that I’ve blown chunks in my day, and giving thanks that the kids took after Mama, who has daintily spit up perhaps two Dixie Cups worth of potpourri-scented nectar in her life.
But on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, as we prepared to load the kids into the minivan and make the 2-hour drive home from my sister-in-law’s house, this happened:
***
[Twin A toddles up to Dad, who sweeps her into his arms. Her shirt rides up, revealing a taut belly]
SIL: Look at her stomach!
Mama: I know! She had four glasses of milk with dinner!
Dad: [pats Twin A's back] Aww…yes, that’s my widdow schnuggly buggly…
Twin A: [burps]
Dad: Aww, the widdow baby had a widdow burpy wurpy…
Twin A: [spews gallons of partially digested Mediterranean side dishes onto oblivious Dad]
Everyone: [crosstalking]
What the…?
Holy fuuuuuu…ck!
Jesus, I’m gonna barf.
Oh, shit, I can smell the feta!
Why won’t it stop? Can’t you make it stop?!
***
Twin A was largely unfazed. I was coated in curdled milk and partially digested orzo; frozen with an upturned palm full of recycled olives, warm liquid soaking through to my underwear.
But I didn’t panic. I shut down any pesky mental activity that didn’t help me survive the crisis at hand. Zombie like, I bathed the child and myself, put on my pajamas, and drove home. Because I’m a pro. A veteran. I don’t let panic, disgust, revulsion, doubt, or consideration of the gender politics and socioeconomic implications of reverse-traditional family roles interfere with my job.
About BetaDad
When you’re a parent, it’s all about tunnel vision – intense focus on the task at hand. And when it’s over, cleanse your mind with any number of tactics: meditation, compartmentalization, or in my case, half a bottle of wine.
Twitter Name: about100percent
Half a bottle of wine is a good start, anyway.
The first time V barfed (as opposed to the baby spitup) I was away and it was beets. Hubby took a picture, it was like a crime scene.
Twitter Name: therealneeroc
Oh Lord. I would have assumed that the kid was puking its lungs out and called 911.
My oldest gets migraines that make her throw up. Typically at school. She is like a walking disaster and I… am mostly glad that I don’t have to be around for it.
Twitter Name: ladyjess78
Yeah–that’s one of the reasons it’s so popular to send kids to school. They’re kind of gross to have around the house.
very funny, bro. pre parenthood, i babysat my nephew and gave him a shit ton of milk and he threw up all over me. it wasn’t even three minutes before i was on the phone w/ my brother telling him to hurry the fuck home and pick that puke-filled bastard up.
he told me to shove the phone up my ass. i hung it up instead and proceded to clean the little guy up. it was quite the experience. my first one, no less, with puke.
there have been many more since.
Twitter Name: johncaveosborne
When you have 5 of them, I’m sure there have to be a couple pukers in the mix.
That is possibly the best-told vomit story I’ve ever heard. Perhaps it was the upturned palm full of recycled olives.
Thank you! I’m pretty sure I’m going to revolutionize the whole genre.
18 months into Kiddo #1 and I’m still a puke virgin. Which obviously means she’s saving it up for something big and I am on constant high alert status. I’m hoping the past few years of a weak-stomached wife and dog with anxiety issues and taste for garbage has prepared me. We shall see…
R has two great ones. 1. In a traffic jam on I-40 in the middle of the Smoky Mtns: she pukes & I, sitting beside her, catch it all in my hands! I yell to L, driving, “roll the window down”; she says “which one”? Like Luke in that trash compacter, I yell “all of them!” I throw it out the window. Next to the barely moving car next to us in said traffic jam. 2. At dinner w/ my entire family, she puked onto my FACE and it bounced off onto L’s FACE! A twofer.
The impulse to catch the vomit in your hands is a weird one. In the case of this story, it was pretty much an empty gesture. What I caught in my hand was about 1/50th of the total volume.
Our older daughter was chucking for a day or so, but then we thought the house was clear.
A day or so later I went into the twins (15 months) room to get the up in the morning (still dark), got Paddy out of his sleeping bag and turned around to get Jules. She was holding her hand out to me – so I held out my hand to receive whatever it was. While I was looking at my hand puzzled, she bent down, picked something else up, and handed it to me… It was at that point I realised she had chucked some time during the night and had then been rolling in it. Not a nice way to start the day.
In the end, the whole house copped gasto twice in 3 weeks. We are now 4 days clear of the last episode, and crossing everything that can be crossed that we wont get it again.