Sunday, June 28, 2009

Vacation! All I Ever Wanted

We recently flew to Huntington Beach, California to visit Rosie's favorite uncle, Josh. We all decided to celebrate our anniversary with some moderately good Seaside Mexican food on the snazzy little HB main street. Rosie made eating out just as adventurous as ever with the screaming, the spills, and suddenly proclaiming "all done" before the beers were half gone. Kris and I have come to accept that for the next 18 years, we are essentially banned from restaurants which serve meals over $9.99, because it seems that fancy people don't appreciate the occasional lemonade bath for their Jimmy Choos. But since Josh is still childless and fancy free, this weekend has been a crash course in parenthood. If only we could be better stewards for his journey since being prepared takes 97.2% of the stress out of outings with children. But as it is, we rarely remember to bring snacks, sippy cups, or diaper wipes along with us.

Once we were back home from dinner we started the bed time dance where we insist that it's late, and Rose is tired, and she in turn assures us that she's fine and it's time to play. Being taller and slightly smarter, Kris and I eventually prevailed, but less than an hour later Rosie woke up screaming. I almost left her to work it out for herself, but I figured she probably didn't remember where she was, so I went up to comfort her.

Once I got the door open I heard gagging and coughing interspersed with the screaming, and instantly started panicking. Rosie started to throw up a little so I scooped her up, ran down the hall to the bathroom, and held her over the sink. "I need help! Rosie is choking!" I screamed.

Kris and Josh came bounding up the stairs. Kris assessed the growing pile of pink puke in the sink, and the pathetic gagging sound Rose was making. We watched her gag and cough and cry for a moment, feeling completely useless. When I could no longer take it I halfheartedly stuck my finger in her mouth to see what was in there. Finding nothing, I looked up at Kris with sheer panic on my face. He took Rosie from my arms, and one triumphant finger sweep later, the puke fountain flowed freely. Gobs of stinky pink and white goo filled the sink. I suddenly realized it shouldn't go down the drain so I tried to hold it back with one hand while picking up chunks to identify what could have made her sick. As the puke oozed through my fingers, I remembered that Josh was also standing there, and could go get some paper towel. I glanced through the doorway and saw Josh's wide-eyed face completely drained of color and washed in horror. Above all else, Josh was concerned for Rosie, but combine the puking with the crying all night, waking up at 5am, inconvenient napping and generally stickiness and it has become clear that we have set back any future Lander cousins another few years.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lesson learned that day: there is a limit to how many Twizzlers a 20 month-old baby should be allowed to eat in one afternoon. I'd peg that limit at roughly 1/4 of a bag.

CrazyMonkeyHouse said...

Not...Helping.

Anonymous said...

Natalie,

Really, the gross parts about parenthood are no grosser than being a dog owner. Hell, The Steve throws up way more often than Rosie. And, when she poops it's all contained in a nice disposable package. I have to actually pick up The Steve's poop by hand. Granted, my hand is encased inside a plastic bag, but still it's gross, squishy, smelly turd in your hand!

Trust me, the gross and irritating moments are way overshadowed by all of the fun and cute moments.

Somer Love said...

Im with ya NAt

Maggie May said...

I'm so glad to have stumbled here! I DO know what RSD is, I have a friend who was in a wheelchair from it for a while, but she has made a wonderful and unexplained recovery and is mostly pain free for chunks of time. I also know what fibro is, I was dx with it for a while until the changed the dx... I made huge, huge lifestyle changes in diet, taking supplements, exercise, etc, and live mostly pain free now. I'm so glad you found help in the fibro drugs- chronic pain is incredibly hard and I just don't think anyone who hasn't experienced it can understand. I'm also a writer and look forward to browsing the chapters you put up. :)

Maggie May