I’ve been waiting to write this. Waiting until my t-shirt wasn’t covered in puke, waiting until there wasn’t a huge pile of towels in the bedroom, waiting until I had more than three hours of sleep, but I can’t wait any more. If I do, I may never write again.
The night after Christmas our darling five month old, Coral Anna, turned into a human geyser. The gurgling of her first-ever projectile vomit awoke us. In the continuing chaos, we haven’t managed to get a picture for the baby book.
Tonight Old Faithful has slowed down. She’s been gagging down Pedialyte administered through a syringe and sleeping in her bouncy chair upright. Our pediatrician has assured us that it will only last about six days. Only six days.
Big sister Cedar doesn’t quite get it. After the first sleepless night, as I prepared for an emergency run to Fred Meyer, I told her, “Coral’s puking. We have to go get her a special drink.” Cedar replied, “I want to puke too,” and then ran around the room sticking her tongue out and barking like a seal.
We’ve been wondering which one of us will be stricken next. So far, so good, but odds are with the vomit to human ratio in our household, Coral passed this on. What will we do if both mom and dad taken out at the same time? Like so many transplanted Alaskans we don’t have any family nearby, so we’re on our own. No Grandma and Grandpa to call. No Auntie to stop by with soup and DVDs for the kids.
It happened once before Coral was born. Cedar was nineteen months old when TJ and I were both stricken with food poisoning in the middle of the night. It was an ugly evening in a one-bathroom house. We negotiated a triage system for toilet priority. I lay on the couch while TJ curled in a nest of comforters right outside the bathroom door.
When Cedar woke up we got breakfast on the table. We called in sick to work, but neither of us could venture far enough from the toilet to drive her to daycare. She managed without us. She fed the dog, returned to her leftover breakfast later in the morning calling it her “snack,” and dragged out every toy in the house. We both stirred into consciousness when she shouted, “Look I have a knife,” and relaxed when we saw it was a butter knife. At one point I opened my eyes and saw her standing over TJ, demanding, “Daddy, play a song on the green guitar.” He was unresponsive. By lunchtime, I was functional enough to parent, but I’ll admit I fed her cereal.
It’s a good thing Cedar isn’t one of those heroic child prodigies who learned to dial 911 at a young age. While we were explaining to the paramedics why an ambulance wasn’t necessary, she would have been meeting her new foster parents.
If this happens now, I don’t know what we’ll do. We can’t let the two of them go feral for a day. It was scary enough with one. Being outnumbered parents so far from family is like being the cop who decides to go in without backup. Moms out there please comment with advice if this has happened to you. I think I might start training Cedar to dial 911 just in case.
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