Barf Watch 2007

This morning, Matthew bought himself a one-way ticket aboard the Puke Train to Vomitville, and there was no scheduled stops until bedtime tonight. All aboard!!

Last night at 4am, outside, Elsa started barking ferociously, the way she usually does when someone rings the doorbell, as if someone was there. It being 4am, I grumbled all the way down the stairs, flung open the back door and ushered her into the house with a couple of unprintable explicatives not in her favor. Since it was a full moon, I figured she was just an idiot, as usual. However, Elsa, still disturbed, ran upstairs and into my office for a moment but then trotted down the hall to our room. By the time I had reached the top of the stairs I was greeted by the pungent punch-in-the-face odor of a well-used diaper, but still half-asleep, I assumed it wasn’t properly discarded, made a note to take care of it in the morning and returned to bed (but not after cracking the window for some fresh air). Less than two hours later, Matthew wakes up, crying. I felt like someone threw sand in my eyes, and I gave Kara a couple of kicks. “Baby’s up.”

When she finally dragged herself into Matthew’s room, she called out that she needed some help, that he had thrown up all over the place and had completely blown out his diaper. It was, I would have to say without doubt, the worst blow-out I had ever seen in my life.

It made dysentery look like constipation.

That began the day, cleaning barf out of his sheets and mattress, and I don’t think there was more than five minutes during the whole day that Matthew wasn’t hanging on me, cuddling into the crook of my arm or sleeping on my shoulder. He took three naps, and threw up two more times. The first time was after he sucked the red dye from a popsicle and ended up looking like Linda Blair from The Exorcist. The second time it was directly in my hand, and I’m not sure what made me instinctively put out my hand to catch most of it—the floor would have worked nicely—but I did, and it was like trying to hold onto a raw egg; most of it oozed through my fingers and onto the blanket in my lap. After that, he sat on a towel for the rest of the day.

Natalie, much to her credit, avoided both of us. She played games on the computer for about four straight hours... so much so, that she's getting a pocket protector next Christmas.

So, now we’re waiting for Natalie’s turn, if what Matthew had was a bug of some sort. After she fell asleep tonight, I sneaked in there and stripped her bed of all of her stuffed animals so she wouldn’t ralph on them in the middle of the night…and I also gave her a bucket next to her bed, just in case.

Interesting side note to all of this… all the years of trouble and angst that Elsa has caused me finally paid off. Apparently, Elsa was actually doing her job last night when she was barking, as most of the unlocked cars in the neighborhood were opened and rifled through for valuables. In my truck, I found that my center console was open but nothing was missing, including several CDs, oh yeah, and the keys to Kara’s car and the house. Nice. I surmise that Elsa scared them off before they could find anything worthwhile (keys aside, there’s nothing of value in my truck, but the lady next door lost a camera and her purse, sans the wallet because of dumb luck on her part...it fell under the seat).

Shortly, I plan to install a security camera. Sure, it seems drastic and perhaps a little overly precautious, especially considering what a safe neighborhood we live in, but I vowed early on in my life never to be a victim.

I guess I shall listen to Elsa too—it seems that she knows what she’s doing. Smart dog, that Elsa. Smart dog.