Dear Ethan, year 1, month 2 (weekend update)

Posted on Tue 02/20/07 in Fatherhood

Dear Ethan,

This weekend was pretty insane, a bit scary, and had no truly fun parts about it; however, our little family did share many special moments. For lack of better words, I'll call these special moments excessive vomiting.

It started Thursday night as mommy and I wound down after a long day, happy that Friday was just half an Earth's turn away. You woke from your brief sleep about nine o'clock and were crying. This was unusual. I went in to check on you. You were standing up, holding the hand rails of your crib and crying with your eyes closed. As you felt me enter the room, your eyes opened. As you watched me bend down to pick you up, your mouth opened. I blinked. I then remember feeling like a tomato on a salad with an extra order of blue cheese.

You began hurling a spate of milk and whole chunks of mixed fruit onto your mattress, with a good portion splashing onto my PJs. My daddy-senses ignored the deluge and advised me to pick you up. Once I did, more vomit. On my neck. On my shirt. On the floor. Then, my daddy-senses said, "Go get mommy." We cleaned up the mess, calmed you down with a drink of water, and strapped sheets set #2 to your bed. Convinced that you were probably okay, we laid you down. Not 20 minutes later, the entire episode happened again. After strapping sheets set #3 to the bed, we decided to keep you with us for the night.

We were all settled down in bed and hoping you wouldn't have to suffer anymore, when... mommy said, "I think I have to throw up." Off she went. Then, you puked some more.... and mommy kept puking. The bathroom was like a revolving door for mommy. And you continued to heave and spit up about every hour. I didn't sleep either, but I felt pretty good.

I'll take a pause for the cause to inject that watching your child throw-up and cry is one of the worst and most helpless feelings.

Friday morning, daddy called in sick to work. We found out that your and mommy's lunch date from Wednesday also had a puke-fest that night. We were sure it was food poisoning.

Thankfully, you started feeling pretty good Friday... happy dad was home from work... and things were ok.... well, except that mom was still stuck between the bed and the bathroom. Saturday night, things got worse again.

Over a period of an hour, I found myself clinching the floor, cold and stiff. Mommy was trying to get me to do stuff like give you a bath, make her soup, clean the house, wash the car, do the bills, rub her feet... ok, that was an exaggeration... but, all I could do was crawl barely fast enough to keep up with you. I moaned and wimpered on all fours... until...

... I threw up the broccoli surprise I had made myself for dinner. That pleasant experience came with a fever of 101... which hopped up to 103.

So, just to recap the score at this point... three of us crawling around on the floor; nobody at work; everyone helpless. Mommy and I prayed that we would make it until the next day. We knew Grandma would keep you at her house so we could recover.

While my vomit count stopped at one, I was still out of gas (not literally). Sunday came and went as we struggled to rid our house of the stench of sour milk.

Sunday night was quiet.

Monday, mom and I reflected on what a crazy, suckie weekend we had, and we puzzled over how people with 8 kids could possibly survive something like that. We then decided that despite all the throwing up we had all weekend, we wanted some Chicken Pot Pie (from here on referred to as "CPP") from Boston Market. And so, we went.

I took one bite of my CPP, smiled and had another. Mom took at bite of her CPP, smiled and had another. Ethan took one sniff of his sweet potatoes and sprayed the whole table with what looked like pickled herring. Mom said it looked like lunch. We cleaned up and hoped, for their sake, that the other patrons hadn't witnessed what we had.

Dr. said he had a stomach bug. Some bug, he says? Some weekend.

Love, Ralph (click the above image to enlarge)