Tales from La La Land

Aside from the occasional baby spit-up and two instances of projectile vomit when Harper was an infant, we have been super, super lucky in the puke department. I hate to even type that sentence because I’ve probably just assured some kind puke jinx.

But, I’m pretty sure this past Sunday night/Monday morning was our inauguration into for-real parenting. Like, the days of Harper’s bedroom smelling like freshly-bathed toddler and baby powder could be over. The days of our living room smelling like Cinnamon Yankee Candle and homemade pot roast  grilled cheese sandwiches could be done.

We hung out with some friends on Sunday evening. Harper went to sleep like normal when we got home. Then she woke up at midnight. As usual, Laef and I looked at each other, and rolled back over. I know what you’re thinking, that we are terrible people, but she normally puts herself back to sleep within 5 minutes. On this particular evening, however, 5 minutes became 15, and it was evident that something was amiss. Laef got up to check, came back and said, “She threw up. I need your help.”

The way he presented that statement, as if to say, “She peed her diaper, no big deal”, did not properly prepare me for what I was about to walk into.

I will spare you the details (there might have been whole blueberries stuck to Mickey), but we stripped the bed, changed her pajamas, threw everything in a plastic garbage bag. Her hair had barf in it. Her hands and face had barf. All of her stuffed animals were victims. There are simply zero words to describe the smell. Did I mention blueberries? I will NEVER eat blueberries in my life again.

I forgot to spare the details. Sorry.

Anyway, we cleaned her up, put new sheets on the bed, and got her into new pajamas. She didn’t have a fever, so we figured she just ate something that upset her stomach and that she would feel better. I rocked her back to sleep, but let me tell you, I was dry-heaving the whole time. Her hair didn’t have that sweet baby smell. Not even close. You never want to be dry-heaving while cuddling your child, but, I guess that’s the reality of parenthood, yo.

We all settled back into bed, and then about 10 minutes later, I heard it. It happened again. We did the whole drill again. And realized we were in for a long night.

She eventually fell asleep for a couple of hours, but by 7 a.m. she no longer wanted to kick it in her crib. I wonder why?

When she woke up, we decided to give her a small bottle of milk because she was hungry, but didn’t really want to eat her normal breakfast.

Milk. Was. A. Bad. Choice.

She immediately threw up all over the living room. When I say all over, that’s what I mean. Everywhere. Because of course we tried to pick her up and get to the bathroom, which did nothing other than assure that there was barf from the living room, to the hallway, to the bathroom. We put her in the bath tub, and she looked up, smiled, and said, “All done.”

So, now we had two garbage bags full of puke covered things.

Laef skipped off to work with nary a wave. I mean, I’m sure he wanted to hang back and bask in the new fragrance of our home, but my woeful eyes didn’t do much to persuade him. I really did not want to be stuck home alone with a projectile-vomitting toddler. I just don’t handle the vom well at all. I had to act quick, so I told Laef that we’d make his lunch and bring it to him at work. (This makes me sound like an awesome wife, but really I figured if I took her to Laef’s work, she could puke there instead.)

Thankfully, the milk incident was the last of the sickness. Harper went about her morning as though nothing had happened. We visited Laef at work, and she ran around playing, blowing kisses to his coworkers, fooling them all.

Later that afternoon when she went down for her nap, I put on my breathing mask, and made my way to the laundry room. I figured if anyone saw me, I could say I had allergies. Luckily no one was in the laundry room, because, let me tell you: THAT MASK WAS BUNK. When I opened the two garbage bags full of vomit-covered items, it was clear: THIS IS THE MASK I NEEDED. I was not prepared for what came out of those trash bags. I tried to throw everything into the washing machine as fast as I could and run away.

Just as I closed the lid to the washing machine, and removed my D-list mask, one of our neighbors rolled in. I don’t know how it came up, but he mentioned in conversation that his wife is pregnant, and the baby is due in May.

I am not sure if my face was the “this is so exciting you are going to love it, babies are amazing, life changing, wonderful things” or “omg, you poor motherfuckers, wait until you smell baby barf it is the worst thing, and I only slept two hours last night, enjoy every second until May see you later, bye!!!!!!!!”, but either way, I totally smiled and said Congratulations, you will love it.

HAHAHAHAHA.

But, seriously, freshly bathed, happy babies, really are THE best. xo