Evomition

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No one ever told me that becoming a mother would, at some point or another, require me to cup my hand in front of my child's mouth in a vain attempt to capture as much vomit as possible and keep their clothes intact.

And they certainly didn't tell me what to do with a handful of vomit once I had it.

But one learns quickly in the school of motherhood. It's a sink or swim, dog-puke-on-dog kind of world.

And, over the past two weeks, there's been lots of puking.

It started on the ill-fated drive home from Iowa and it didn't stop for nearly eleven days. No wait, that's not true...the puking stopped after six days.

Then the explosive diarrhea began.

No hand-cupping there, thank you very much.

But there was lots of hugging and comforting...all done a little too close to "ground zero," if you know what I mean.

Poor Luke had it the worst, I think. Or maybe he just complained the loudest. Either way, it wasn't pretty.

"Mommy, I hurt," became his pathetic mantra.

And there wasn't a thing I could do for him.

Evie was no better, really. My little ball of flaming energy was nothing more than a limp noodle for several days. And that was after she vomited her way across America in our SUV.

I've watched my kids suffer before, but never like this. Both of them slept more than they did as newborns...which would have been a nice break had I not been constantly checking on them to see if they were still alive.

They both went to the doctor...more than once...but all that did was make them even more miserable.

The pediatrician wanted a urine sample to see if Evie had an infection. And since my daughter isn't yet capable of voluntarily peeing in a cup (as far as I know), they had to do a catheter.

The nurse and her two lackeys assistants came in and helped me hold my 20 lb little girl spread-eagle on the table. Evie just laid there and stared at them all. Naturally, they were all taken with her and smiled ear to ear the entire time.

I'm pretty sure my second-born has never had so much attention in her entire sixteen months of existence.

Fortunately, the nurse was proficient and Evie hardly twitched during the entire procedure. Afterwards, we all let go of her and she just kept laying there...all spread out. One of the assistants commented that she'd never seen a baby NOT cry during that procedure.

That's my daughter...freakishly tough.

Of course, if they had any idea what the poor girl put up with from her brother on a daily basis, they might understand her high pain tolerance.

Luke's visit was just as memorable. I took him to the after-hours clinic located in the mall because he was complaining of abdominal pain.

He was also vomiting.

I knew this as I buckled him into the car seat...and yet, in my first display of utter stupidity that evening, I failed to grab a change of clothes.

So of course he threw up on the way in.

I cleaned him off as best as I could, hurriedly carried him into the office, and then pleaded with the receptionist to give me five minutes to buy him a change of clothes at the store next door. She said that would be fine, so we ran over there and grabbed the most decent outfit I could find on the sale rack. Then...being the classy, dignified mother that I am...I ran him back to the clinic and changed his clothes in the (momentarily) empty waiting room.

The outfit was huge on him. The shirt collar hung down over one of his shoulders and the shorts fell to his ankles the moment he let them go.

I considered putting him back into the soiled clothes, but I figured baggy and ill-fitting won out over wet and stinky any day of the week.

We got through the appointment without incident but Luke started to get really hungry.

"Eat, Mommy. Eat, Mommy. Mommy, eat!"

I knew he would probably throw it all up, but what was I supposed to do? The kid was hungry! Surely that was a good sign, right? And he'd been such a champ in the doctor's office. So, we sat in the mall food court and I fed him chicken nuggets and half of a chocolate chip cookie.

Moment of stupidity number two.

I was actually hoping that if he was going to lose it, he'd wait until we made it home.

Yeah....right. Because that's just the kind of lucky thing that normally happens to me.

No, I'm afraid that the chocolate-chip-chicken made an abrupt reappearance.

I instinctively held my hand under his mouth and tried to divert the flow away from his new clothes, but I was only partially successful. I thought for a split second about going back to the store for a third outfit, but I didn't want to face that sales lady again and try to explain why I have my son out in public when he's clearly ill. So, I picked him up and scrambled out to the car as quickly as I could.

A long trench coat might have come in handy then...along with some dark sunglasses. I could have been like the Ghost of Christmas Present and hidden my little sickly child under my skirt.

In retrospect, though, I'm glad that he threw up when he did. I was thinking of taking him on the new carousal after we ate. Potential moment of stupidity number three.

It's almost a shame, though. I think that might have actually topped Evie's 2008 "Vomit Across America" tour.

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