A New Perspective

So last night, I went to bed around 11:00. Michael and I have an arrangement, I get up with our early riser (Quinn) Monday through Friday, and he takes Saturday and Sunday. So, I decided to take FULL advantage of my last good night's sleep, and get to bed early. Around 11:15, Cade comes in to our room and informs me that his stomach hurts. He crawls into bed with me, and I'm thinking how cozy he is. We cuddle a little. I ask him if it feels like he's going to throw up. . . "Nope." So, I decide NOT to go get the vomit bowl. At about midnight he wakes up again saying "I think we are going to have to have a funeral for me. My stomach really hurts." I tell him we aren't going to have to have a funeral, and why doesn't he try to go into our bathroom and see if he can go. No sooner than he gets up, I hear it. The dreaded sound of all mothers. That half choke-half gag-something is coming up whether we like it or not-sound. And there all over my bedroom floor it goes. "Run" I tell him. . . "get to the toilet". So, there he stands in my bathroom at the toilet, but not putting up the lid, just standing there looking at it and getting his dinner all over my bathroom floor. I start the clean up process. . . get the shower running, and he's still vomiting all over, but now, he's doing it on me because I'm talking to him, and he keeps following me all over the bathroom leaving another disgusting trail for me to clean up. Finally, I throw him in the shower and by then Michael has come to help, but really, I just want him to keep our incredibly curious new dog out of the mess. We split the duties, and I'm on my hands and knees scrubbing the bathroom floor and I hear this soft sound coming out of the shower. At first I think it's crying. . . then I realize. The little kid that just vomited ALL (and yes folks, I do mean ALL - we're talking carpet, tile, walls, doors, baseboards, etc.) over my bedroom and bathroom is SINGING. I questioned him "Cade . . . are you . . . singing?" His reply . . ."Yep. You know the great thing about throwing up, Mommy? It's that you feel so much better afterwards!!" And that's when the tears came. Not from him, but me. I realized that, as much as I despise cleaning up vomit, some day. . . in about 12 years, I'll get a call from him at Notre Dame (hey, I can dream right. . . while we're at it, let's say he's there on a full ride scholarship) and he'll say he's sick with the flu going around the dorm, and I won't be there to help him. I need to cherish every moment. Ok, I won't say that I cherished the clean up, but it did put things in perspective. So, that's the story of how a little vomit, a little singing, and a few tears shed some new light on childhood sickness in our home.
By the way. . . he's doing just fine now. "Feels GREAT!" He says. I still have him quarantined!! - Just in case!!