As a parent and writer, I try to always be honest even when something is uncomfortable or gross. It doesn’t help anyone to shy away from the grim reality of parenthood. It’s a wonderful, rewarding journey but the reality is, from birth clear until they are at an age of taking care of themselves, you’re going to deal with a lot of body fluids.
Raising young children is in reality quite gross. It makes one consider why we even bother to have children in the first place. Between diapers, spit up, vomit, poop and pee, it’s really rather disgusting. It’s a miracle the human race didn’t cease to exist with the very first diaper blow out! Parenting is a labor of love from the very beginning and it’s best to just be honest about body fluids. Everybody has them and everybody expels them in some way.
My family recently dealt with its first case of stomach flu. I don’t mean just one isolated moment of throw-up. I mean we had three out of four of us racing for the bathrooms and diving for a bowl. It all started when my oldest daughter started throwing up one night after dinner.
There I was, her mom, holding her tangled hair back as she vomited her guts out. I was covered in puke, the toilet seat was covered, I’m rubbing her back (vomiting is traumatic for children) while holding my head to one side and gagging as quietly as I can. My husband is right outside the bathroom door for solidarity purposes but I can’t blame him, he’s our main source of income, he can’t in anyway get sick.
After about a week, she’s feeling better and returns to school. I’m breathing in relief because the rest of our family was spared. That was until she comes home with another aching stomach. She couldn’t handle the cafeteria food and once again starts throwing up. The following day I get a dreaded call from the school nurse that my youngest is now throwing up.
I rush up to the school with my oldest daughter, prepared for the worst. I grab a large bowl and a few towels before I leave. I find my littlest, sitting in the nurse’s office with a fever, tear tracks down her cheeks and a plastic basin sitting in front of her.
We leave quickly. I rush her out to our car just as the pick-up line of cars has started forming. Now, if there is one thing I know about kids, they have very little control over their bodily functions. They have to use the bathroom at the most inopportune times and they never have to vomit until they are somewhere where a bowl or toilet isn’t present. This happens to be one of those moments.
My little daughter starts wailing and I see it coming. I rip open the car door, pull out the bowl and shove it in her face, just as she vomits. She vomits and vomits. It’s a tidal wave of projectile stomach fluid that would put the exorcist to shame. She stops just as the vomit reaches the brim of the bowl and just barely starts sloshing out over my hands.
Here I am, standing in the parking lot of our school, with two sick vomiting children and the pick-line is steadily growing longer. I’m surrounded by hundreds of parents picking their kids up and I’m holding a big bowl of vomit. I’m looking at it and I’m panicking! What do I do with this? I can’t dump it the parking lot and I definitely can’t bring it back inside the school to hand over to the nurse! I can’t bring it home with me!
I suck it up! I instruct my kids to get into the car and I walk across the parking lot. I cut through the line of cars and the wondering stares of all the parents, all the while holding a bowl of sloshing vomit and dump it in the schools bushes…in front of everyone!
I swear, I got a lot of judgmental looks and I returned their disgusted glares with a glare of my own.
“Just try it!” I hear my mind screaming out loud. “Just try and call me out! Don’t even think about posting this on our parent’s page on Facebook! Don’t even try it or I will use all my snarky powers to curse you all with the stomach flu! Then you can hand deliver a bowl of puke to the bushes and know how it feels!”
I return to the car, drive home with sticky, germ infested hands and rush my kids into our house. As I’m helping my daughter out of her soiled clothing in our entryway. I hear the rev of an engine and screeching tires. I’m mad again! Someone (probably one of the neighborhood teenagers) is racing through our neighborhood again!
All of a sudden I hear the car pull up into our driveway with a screeching halt. My husband comes barreling into the house with a blanched white face.
“I need the bathroom now!” He half yells at me.
In anticipation of my own probability of getting sick, I spend the next few hours preparing the house with towels, buckets and toilet paper rolls positioned by every couch and bedside. I put canned soup, seven-up and crackers on the counter. Anything to make my life as easy as possible, while I’m sick and taking care of everyone else who is sick.
Thankfully, the universe gave me a break. I was the only one spared from this dreaded illness. I’m the mom right? I can’t get sick. The ship would literally sink without me. I’m equally thankful that I didn’t make the Facebook page of judgy parents either. With everything considered, my experience with child raising has helped me develop a tough stomach and an even tougher attitude! Body fluids…no biggie…it comes with the territory.
