All in a Day's Work (when you're a mommy)

Today has been the kind of day you see in a commercial, right before the mom cries "Calgon...take me away!" Well, I don't have any Calgon, but I think I am about to have a visit with Bath and Body Works Pink Grapefruit Bubble Bath. Less because I need to relax and more because I feel like I am covered in vomit from head to toe.

Every morning when the boys and I make our way to the living room, we call Mark, who's already been at work for a couple of hours by then. He leaves while we are all still very much asleep, so this is our first contact with him for the day. This morning he sounded terrible when he answered the phone. I asked what was wrong and he said he wasn't feeling well, his stomach was upset. I asked if he was going to come home and he said he didn't think so. I told him to let me know if I needed to come and get him (he takes light rail to work), otherwise I would see him later.

Around 2:30 he calls me from the train to tell me he's left a little early and he's on his way home. At this point the boys are in bed asleep and by the time I got them up, dressed, piled in the car and out to get him, Mark would be almost home. So he had to stay on mass transit with a very questionable digestive system. Apparently he had to hop off the train at one point on the way home so he could safely be sick on the side of the road instead of on a fellow passenger's lap.

So he makes it home while the boys are still asleep and proceeds to fall asleep on the couch. So far so good. Then the boys woke up....they were absolutely beside themselves with joy to see their Daddy home so early in the day. They paid no attention to the fact that he was in an unconscious lump on the couch....they wanted to PLAY! I did my best to keep the kids away from him, but I had become chopped liver. They had seen me all day and Daddy was home before dark, so climbing on him as though he was a jungle gym was all they thought sounded fun (don't feel too sorry for him. My suggestions for him to move to the bedroom were for some reason falling on deaf ears).

This continued while I made dinner. I will not lie. It was making me very grumpy that he was choosing to stay on the couch, meaning I was not only making dinner, I was having to referee the boys...trying my best to keep them away from their father and as "quiet" as possible (and by quiet I mean "not banging on anything" and "not playing the kazoo", which had become the only things the boys wanted to do). Finally dinner was ready, so I turned on Noggin, faced the boys towards the TV with their dinner, and collapsed at my desk, determined to turn off my brain for a few minutes while the boys ate.

Little did I know that whatever bug had infiltrated my husband's stomach had also landed in Micah's.

After a few minutes I heard him from around the corner "Ma-ee, Ma-ee". I rolled my eyes and sighed, but headed to the other room, certain I was going to need to pick up his milk from off the floor or something equally irritating.

Or clean up the most projectile vomit I have ever seen come out of a human being, let alone a tiny little human being. It was everywhere and it just kept coming. His clothes were soaked, it was all over the carpet and in every single nook and cranny of his high chair (and there are a lot....I didn't realize how many until I had to clean puke out of each and every one). And the stench! Vomit never smells good, but this was a particularly rancid batch! Even as I'm typing this, I can still smell it in my nostrils.

Mark jumped up to help me, and even though he was sick, too, I let him. This was too big a job for one person. I went and ran a bath and Mark held Micah while I stripped him of his clothes (Micah, not Mark), and then took over bathtime duties. I then had the task of trying to keep my own stomach calm while I mopped up puddles (yes, puddles) of sick from all kinds of places (the boy was thorough), all while answering Elijah's questions:

"Did he spill, Mommy?"
"Did he make a mess, Mommy?"
"Did he drop his food, Mommy?"
"Where did he go, Mommy?"
"Why was he crying, Mommy?"
(and repeat that about 200 times)

After having wiped, scrubbed, rinsed and sprayed every surface in the general area of the incident, I still didn't feel like anything was clean, even though I knew it was. Micah was clean, in pajamas and sipping slowly on diluted juice while laughing and running around like a nut. I was glad he was feeling better, but all I wanted to do was go to bed.

So here I am, feeling very disheveled and smelling of puke. My stomach is still empty and growling at me, yet the dinner I made doesn't sound so good now that I've seen it regurgitated (this is not the weight loss plan I had in mind). The bathtub is calling my name and then I will put my feet up in front of the American Idol auditions, putting this day behind me. Hopefully Elijah and I won't succumb to the same ugliness that Mark and Micah did today. Lord willing.