A dark and pukey night

Not so dark, but definitely pukey. If you have a delicate constitution, you might not want to read what follows.

The stomach flu has arrived, dear readers, attacking the smallest member of the family first. She's a very rational puker, willing to have her hair pulled back out of her face, ok with sitting next to the toilet on her little step stool, calm in the face of the umpteenth towel/bed linen/t shirt change. It's kind of heartbreaking.

Meanwhile, I feel my own innards beginning to gurgle and I dread what's coming. I'm not so much of a good puker. I don't like throwing up. If I didn't object to it so strenuously, I probably could have made a good bulimic once upon a time, but I'll do almost anything to avoid vomiting. When I was pregnant with the Babe, I threw up every day, at least once, sometimes twice for about four or five months. I learned to be calm through that horrible spasming out of control feeling that I find the most awful part of the experience, even worse than the sheer grossness of it. (I, by the way, had nothing on pukiness compared to my friend Julie who threw up multiple times every day throughout her entire pregnancy. She wins that dubious prize.)

So here I sit, in the Babe's room, curled up in the glider chair I bought when I was pregnant with her, as I spent so many nights during her infancy. During those long nights, she was in my arms or latched on, drowning her sorrows, so to speak. But now, she's a big girl, in her pink-painted, wrought iron big girl bed. I am across the room, typing and listening to her breathe, stir, to the clock (also pink) ticking on the wall over her bed. If it weren't for the minor dread, it would be totally peaceful.