UPDATE: Sunday, Jun 4, 2023 · 7:43:54 PM +00:00 · Peter Olandt
Trigger warning: Highly vivid description of vomit and other common cold disgustingness.
So before I realized what was happening, my sweet little girl quietly walked over to the other room. She left behind some yellow curry, or perhaps yellow lentil soup on the couch where she was sitting. I quickly followed to find her having climbed onto the couch where the 8 year-old was sleeping and she left a larger portion of the yellow lentil soup there.
I was calling this a fiasco. My wife is calling it a shitshow. Hard to argue with her.
I’m writing on 3 hours of highly interrupted sleep. Why am I writing instead of sleeping? Because I am the father of an amazing 8 year-old and an equaling amazing 2 year-old who thinks she’s 8. And all 4 of us in the house have been some level of sick for the past week. At least I think it started a week ago. My mental impairment due to lack of sleep is pretty severe at the moment. It might have started 20 years ago. I’m not sure.
I am sure I have seen more vomit in the last 48 hours than I have ever experienced before. It’s more vomit than if you total up all the vomit that has come before… [At this moment my mind is singing to the tune of “to all the girls I’ve loved before”]
To all the vomit I’ve seen before
Who’ve traveled in and out my door
I’m glad they came along
I dedicate this song
To all the vomit I’ve seen before
Anyway, more total volume of vomit. This includes the dinner at a restaurant with the visiting in-laws when my son was 2 where he was fussing so I held him up in front me to give him attention and he proceeded to projectile vomit directly into my face and all down my clothing. There was no warning and no dodging. I’m simply glad no-one was taking video. The appetizers hadn’t even arrived yet.
So all this weekend there has been vomit after vomit. Including the white chunky stuff which I guess must be the milk in their stomachs turning to cheese. A nice ricotta before it’s been pressed and drained. Now many of you parents are yelling at me, “WHY are you giving a child who’s been throwing up more milk? They’re just going to throw it back up!!!”. To which I must first respond, please lower your voice, I have a nasty headache and I can hear you from here. To which I must also respond that have not also been sleep deprived for 7 days and have a screaming child demanding a bottle of milk who will not take pedialite grape, strawberry, mixed berry, or what ever other flavors they make up to satisfy the college hangover crowd. It’s very disturbing. I’m worried about her ability to recover from a hangover when she gets older. No, that’s not it, yes its the screaming of a child for a simple thing which they get everyday and is soothing to them which they must not have but the crying must stop, I can’t not hear any more of it. It’s gotta work one of these times, right? Those of you who’ve never had children criticizing me right now are welcome to send your address to me in DKos mail and I’ll drop the kid off on your doorstep within the hour.
Oh right, paragraphs…
It hasn’t always been like this. In some distance past called last week there was a world where I might only be woken up once or twice during the night, either by the crying of the 2 year-old or the feet of the 8 year-old sticking in my face after he snuck into bed. Ah, the good old days. This week, even when my wife was “on-duty” for the night to let me get some much needed sleep the evilness of this post nasal drip which the words post nasal drip doesn’t do it justice.
Interlude, I must break my chain of thought because I currently have a two year old taking a break from Daniel Tiger to loudly ask for “Baba” (bottle) about 1 inch from my face. She’s very cute. I managed to talk her into a little drink of water which she refuses to take in a sip cup and she manages to get it all over herself. Where was I...
Post-nasal drips from hell.
In the amount of time it took to write the past interlude, she’s back in my face asking for milk. She’s now at the fridge attempting to take things into her own hands. Crap, gotta go
— Interlude of the interlude. I broke. Sue me. She got the bottle. Go ahead and criticize me in the comments. See what response you’ll get
Back to hell. This isn’t your post-nasal drip that goes down smooth and silkily annoying the crap out of your through until you have a raging sore throat. And the congestions isn’t enough to block breathing through the nose. This is gray looking industrial waste sludge the consistency of crude oil that drips slowly and persistently down eventually blocking off your throat. At which point a massive coughing fits erupts to clear it and then you get to view this mutant sludge in whichever receptacle you have on hand. For my 8 year-old this has been my hand on more than one occasion.
At least my reflexes have improved in the past 6 years. But it’s less reflexes and more proper positioning. I’ve had to change my clothing for one of the throw ups so far, and that was unavoidable splatter. But really the kids always want mom so proper orientation is towards her. I’m joking! (mostly)
But this sludge means that every 30 minutes to an hour I wake up to clear out my throat. And my son get’s up once per hour to clear out his. And my daughter doesn’t seem to have the sludge, or at least the ability to clear it in the same way. I assume she just swallow it. yum. Hence the vomiting. So I was “with the girl” last night until 1:30 AM until such point my wife screamed at the top of her lungs in a wild frothing of the mouth and glowing red eyes that I had both kids now and she was going to sleep. To which I supported this. Why? Because I was now up and knew I wouldn’t be going to sleep anytime soon. She has an important job interview tomorrow for an Executive Director position and is the least sick of us so we need to prioritize her health. Plus I mentioned the glowing red eyes, right? Your eyes would glow too after a week of this.
So I sit now on the couch unable to sleep because my wife had an earlier shift this morning and I decided that all those warnings about too much screen time for kids was written by Russian propagandists. Anyone challenging me on this in the comments will be denounced by me as a Russian, Tankie, shill.
Interlude., crap. Okay false alarm. I thought I heard a vomit coming so I jumped. It turned out to be crap. Of the diarrhea type. Would you like a full description?
okay, that’s all I got. I’m tired. What, you wanted more? I’ll tell you the rest after you watch my kids for the next week.
Attention Spellers and Grammaticians. I don’t care. I’m not proofing this. Go suck spoiled eggs.