Barf: a reality of mom life.

March and April were crazy months up in here. I volunteered to spend a combined total of 80 hours in the door to door ministry during those months. I cut it super close and wound up getting my last hours in yesterday afternoon. I breathed a sigh of relief and thought, tonight I want to watch The Hobbit with Juston and have a glass of wine. It sounded like absolute bliss. I told myself, starting tomorrow I'll get back on my old routine, the house will be clean(ish) again, laundry will be done, and I can start on all the house projects I've been dreaming of for months. But tonight I just want to relax!!

Many hours later, the kids were in bed; we opened our $6.99 Malbec and popped some popcorn. Cozied up in bed, started the movie ... and less than thirty minutes later we both were nodding off. Decided to call it a night and had lights out by 11:15 (that's early for us). Fell asleep holding my hubby's hand, feeling happy and content, and pleased with myself for having two great months, and looking forward to May.

And in what seemed like two seconds later, my mom self was propelling down the hall, spurred on by cries of "MOMMY!" coming from the boys' room. You know how as a mom you can jump out of bed and run without even being awake? And then you wake up at some point and marvel at how your mom abilities kicked in and your brain heard your kid even though you technically didn't!

Well, the smell of puke woke me fully when I got to the boys' room, and I saw my poor baby had barfed (thankfully this kid is on the lower bunk, so no puke sliding down the wall this time). "Mommy, I barfed all over my bed! Its slimy! Its yucky!!"

Nighttime barf is one of those parental duties you just cannot be prepared for. Anyone who thinks they want to have a baby (because most people never think about having KIDS; people want sweet soft lil' BABIES, but babies grow into kids who create real, stinky, human puke) should have to spend a night the way I spent mine, in order to make sure you really, truly want to be a parent.

1. Have a really long, exhausting day, then try to have a relaxing evening with your spouse but wind up falling asleep like old people.
2. Sleep like a log for two hours.
3. Jump out of bed and run into a room reeking of puke.
4. Strip a kid and a bed covered in barf; clean it all up.
5. Waddle all over the house looking for clean blankets to make a bed on the floor for the kid. Note to self: try to keep clean folded blankets in ONE SPOT for this very reason.
6. Spend the rest of the night alternating between dozing off and jumping out of bed to hold a bowl under kid's face so barf doesn't get all over your bedroom carpet. Very important: during the times you're dozing off, be sure to remember all the things you've completely forgotten to do in the last week. That makes it extra fun.
7. Stagger out of bed in the morning to get the older kid off to school. Younger kid who was up sick all night is finally sleeping good and you have to wake him up to load him into the car for the (thankfully short) drive to school. Older kid is freaking out because "if he barfs in the car, I'm going to barf too!!!!!! I don't want him in here sitting next to me!!!" Et cetera.
8. Come home and tuck Sick Kid back into his makeshift floor bed. Hop back into bed yourself, and wake up at 11am with a stiff neck and a headache. Spend rest of the day eating Cheetos, drinking Diet Coke, blogging, and browsing Pinterest to make yourself feel better, but just wind up feeling guilty because Cheetos and Diet Coke are not very fun or fit and now I'm just a hypocrite.

Barf creates a terrible conundrum for me. The responsible mom part of me just wants to clean it up efficiently; sanitize everything, and go back to bed as quickly as possible. The other part of me desperately wants to inspect the barf to see what it is. Why is it that color? Why does it smell like that? I guess the mom part of my brain needs to know that too. What made him barf? Is it the flu, or was it the half a bag of Sour Patch Kids I let him eat at 4:30? Why did he barf up something he ate hours ago? Where is all the stuff he ate after that? If I really look closely, will I barf too? Is the other kid going to wake up sick tonight too? And here's a good one: why can't barfy bedding go into the washing machine? Why do I have to rinse it all off in the tub and then somehow carry sopping wet stinky bedding down to the laundry room at 1:30am? Can't I just run like four rinse cycles to get the barf off? [Juston says NO. Barf cannot go into the washing machine.]

The barf gets cleaned up, and life goes on. The only good thing about having a sick kid is getting to stay home and be lazy, watching movies in our PJ's. I always love an excuse to sit around all day. But then the kid starts feeling better, and starts talking at their regular amount of words per minute, and the day becomes like any other, except I'm extra tired and look extra haggard.

"Can I go ride my scooter?" "Mommy, watch this part. Hey Mommy, watch this part. Mommy, LOOK! Mommy, you missed the best part!" And my personal favorite: "Hey Mommy, I just ate a toenail."