Story time:
It’s 1:15am and I hear my son run down stairs to my bedroom door.
“Are you ok?”
“I puked.”
“In your bed?”
“No, I made it to the bathroom. Some got on the floor.”
In my mind, “some” means a little bit. He’s feeling ok now so I set him up on the couch with his blanket and a bucket and go upstairs to take care of the bathroom.
The smell hits me halfway up the stairs. We had lasagna for dinner.
If I could have had someone else clean that bathroom I would have. I think probably only a little bit made it into the toilet. I had to put a mask on. There was so much I actually checked on him again to make sure he was ok. He was.
A couple of minutes in I realized he must have stepped in some of it (because there was so much) and stopped to put him in the downstairs shower.
I used 2 rolls of paper towel. I thought about replacing the entire toilet more than once while cleaning it. I also thought about setting that whole fucking bathroom on fire. I cleaned the floor and the walls and the side of the sink and the trash can but I threw out the old blue plastic step stool. At 2 in the morning you pick your battles. You also think about how unappreciated and underpaid custodial staff are.
My daughter had two open boxes of maxi pads next to the toilet and puke got on those, too. Those are fucking expensive so I tossed the boxes and cleaned the plastic sleeves of the pads. As I’m doing so I wonder how an 8 year-old can puke this much, and if his older sister really slept through all of his puking plus my constant stream of swearing in disbelief and horror, or if she’s hiding in her room recording it all for her Tik Tok debut.
I sprayed a crazy amount of air freshener and left the bathroom window open. I’m still wondering if the upstairs hall carpet will smell from his little puke footprints. You can’t see where they might be because it’s a brownish braided jute runner.
Mess cleaned, garbage put outside, both of us showered, puked on laundry in the washing machine, Jack asleep peacefully on the couch. He may or may not have put clean clothes on after his shower. Fingers crossed his projectile pukes avoided his shorts. I’m too tired to check.
It’s 3am and I’ve been up for 23 hours now, except for a brief 45 minutes from 12:30 to 1:15. Dog woke me whining at 4am to pee.
Parenting. It’s not for the squeamish.
by Julie Blue 