Tales of Vomit

Pardon if I've told this before on this here blog, but I'm too dern lazy to go searching to see if I've recorded this for future generations.

Once upon a time, Andrew was 2 - I think there's something about that age, at least in memories, because I always think he was 2 when stuff like this happened.  Anyhoo, Andrew came down with the flu or at least something similar to the flu.  Fever, crying, miserable and puking.  Just wanted to be held. 

So I was cuddling him on the couch.  As a baby and a toddler, Andrew was a head-on-the-shoulder cuddler as opposed to a cradler, like Paul.  So I'm watching tv with Andrew facing me, head on my shoulder, whimpering and sniffling and burning up.  It was the good kind of fever in which you almost have to strip down yourself in order to hold a child for a period of time.

Probably I was watching tv; I might have been cooing to him; I really don't remember what was exactly going on before.  I like to think that there was no warning sounds at all because if there was, I'm awfully slow.

But he vomited.  That full-force puke that can shoot across a room, if given the opportunity to display its intensity.  Unfortunately, the back of the couch stopped anything projectile. 

I'm sure I had started to scoot forward or at least had started to shift the puking kid when he turned his head to cry at me and vomited again.  On the side of my head.

In my ear.  

And not splatters or droplets.  No, this was horror-movie worthy.

But what do you do?  I didn't throw him to the floor, yelling "gross, how could you do such a thing to me?"  I think I did let out a minor shriek of disgust, but really?  The damage was done - I was contaminated.  And once you're contaminated, you might as well just sit back and wait for the episode to be done.

I took Andy back to the bathroom and put him in the tub.  I took a quick shower while he was playing in the bath.  I'm pretty sure I power rinsed my ear extremely well.  I got out, washed him up and put him on the floor of my room in front of the tv.  And went out to the living room to survey the damage.

It was awful.  Again, the couch had stopped the force of an object in motion, so it wasn't minor splatters.  Soaked right through the back cushion and down on the bottom cushions.  The smell was awful and I stood there in the doorway to the living room considering my options. 

A)  I had a sick kid who most likely was going to puke again. 
B)  Did I have time to clean the couch cushions?
C)  Wait a minute, if the vomit has soaked into the cushions, a nice wipedown, even a heavy duty wipedown would do no good. 
D)  The couch needed to leave.

So, I pushed the couch out the back sliding door and into the backyard.  We'll deal with it later. 

I don't think Scarlett O'Hara ever got vomited on or had to deal with this situation, but I like to think she'd have done the same thing I did.  After all, I had other things to worry about and the couch?  I could worry about it tomorrow because tomorrow is another day!