Sooner or later every parent faces it. Powerless, you stand by and watch helplessly as your child embraces the "porcelain god." And, no, I am not talking about the drunken hug you give a toilet after a night of over indulgence on alcohol ( I suppose that might come later, although I hope not. Gulp!) I speak of the younger variety, when your precious tot succumbs to some dread sickness and turns into something that at times reminds you of scenes from "The Exorcist." You know, those times when you put on the hats of both a nurse and a janitor.
Now, Miss Isabelle has, for lack of a better term, "up-chucked" before, but until the other night we have never had multiple sessions. Well, this past Monday I quit counting after about the eighth time. I awoke to a "Mommy" that sounded more like a sob and found my daughter, trembling in her bed, covered in what was left of her dinner and chocolate pudding dessert (How appetizing). Taking her to the bathroom I began the process of decontamination and calming, and then I helped her back to her bedroom, where I took apart the fouled bedding and remade everything. By this time Clay awoke and stumbled across the hall to see what the fuss was about and tucked Isabelle into her rocker with a clean blanket, while I made a quick trip to the laundry room. Ten minutes later and armed with air freshener I had Isabelle, safely tucked back into bed with new pillows, new pajamas, new blankets, and stinky hair pulled back in a ponytail away from her newly washed face. Kissing her goodnight and telling her to try and get some rest, I stumbled back across the hall and fell into bed next to an already snoring Clay. I glanced at the clock to see 1:30 dimly glowing green, and hoped that would be the end of it.
Ten minutes later it happened again.
What followed was a night of Isabelle vomiting roughly every thirty or forty-five minutes with the occasional "other action" thrown in. (Yes, along with bedding and pajamas I also washed some underwear too, poor kid. Ugh.) Being a very neat and clean child she quickly learned to tell when she was going to be sick and would bolt out of her bed and run to the potty in order to, as she would say, "not make a mess."
For a while the simple fear of getting sick had her jumping out of bed every five minutes and getting her to rest was impossible. I finally grabbed a blanket and camped out in the glider rocker in her bedroom, which calmed her down considerably. And when it became clear that sleeping was not going to happen for me I snuck down to the laundry room and threw in the load of soiled bedding at about 3:oo.
By about 3:30 or so Isabelle had it down to a routine as sad as that sounds. It would go something like this: She would be lying in bed semi-sleeping and I would be in the rocker dozing. Suddenly, she would sit up and say, "I'm going to get sick, Mommy," and crawl out of bed and hurry out of the room with me on her heels. In the bathroom she would get sick, me holding her hair (the whole time with me thinking how tiny her little back was as I rub it and how I would love to have a magic wand to make it all go away for her). Afterwards like robots, she would flush the potty, I would hand her a rag to wipe her mouth and a cup for a small sip of water and Isabelle would say "whew, that was a close one, Mommy," and I would ask, "Are you okay, honey?" Then it was back to "our posts." We must have repeated the same scene a dozen times, over and over, each time her collapsing into her bed a little more and falling into a deeper sleep.
Eventually, I moved to the guest room bed, so as not to disturb Clay (who I was attempting to let sleep so he could actually go to work the next day) in a vain attempt to get maybe an hour of solid sleep. At one point I awoke to my fat cat, Nib, curled around my head, purring, Isabelle faintly calling from her bedroom. I felt like I was clawing my way out of a long dark tunnel and glanced at the clock certain I had been sleeping at least a couple of hours. It had been 15 minutes.
In the end, we of course, made it through what seemed like the longest night on record, and Isabelle eventually stopped getting sick, although we spent the whole following day recovering. (me from exhaustion ... her from illness!) Like all kids she bounced back amazingly quick. For our family, it was the sickest Isabelle has ever been (knocking on wood as I write). I thank God daily for how healthy she is because it is so hard to watch your child be in even the smallest bit of discomfort, and not be able to make it better.
At the same time somehow it is also a bonding experience, and will become yet one more of the many memories I store up of when Isabelle was a little girl. As I tucked her into bed one of the numerous times I did that long night she clutched my hand and solemnly said, "Thanks for taking care of me, Mommy." With tears in my eyes, I replied, "I'm your Mom, kiddo. That's my job."
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