You know you are a mom when…

Your response to an unexpectedly free Saturday after an extremely stressful week is to wrestle mount laundry into submission and take it captive. And I did, for a few wonderful hours ALL of the laundry in our house was clean. Even the stained and hand wash only items were dealt with.

You celebrate this victory by catching up on some sewing projects and get some outfits altered for the girls to wear to church tomorrow.

Your first thought at 4:30am when you hear the ominous sound of gagging from the tiny form in a nearby bed is, “Oh crap. More laundry.”

This thought is followed by reaching out and catching vomit in your hands and guiding the puker toward the water proof bed pad. It is too late for the pillow and blankets anyway.

You then have sympathy for the tiny puker and set her up with a bowl and water and a blanket while you strip her bed, hand scrub the chunks from the bedding, and remake the bed for her to sleep in.

You hear the baby crying in your bed and lay next to her to help her back to sleep only to find your hip resting in a cold puddle of liquid.

You smell your hand to determine the nature of the puddle.

You pull a corner of the baby quilt you are both lying on down over the puddle of milk vomit and leave it at that until morning.

You think wistfully of the altered outfits and the plans for the day as you watch them go down in smoke as first one and then another of your children vomits, or has diarrhea, for the next 18 hours. (They were outfits brought back by friends and family from India, and we were going to go after church to the Lawn Party hosted by the house of India at the international houses at a very famous park downtown and enjoy the good food and entertainment. Sigh.)

You don’t however let your husband talk you into taking them anyway. Even though you wish he was right. “They aren’t running a fever they’re just vomiting, they’ll be fine soon.” You talk him out of it by announcing that you just emptied vomit bowls twice while he was in the shower. He leaves with the Boy, who is not vomiting, for church, while you turn to the task of comforting the sobbing Girl who misses daddy and her brother the minute they walk out of the door. (They come home with balloons and popsicles.)

You manage, with the help of the GH to get all of the puke, poop and pee covered laundry clean before nightfall. Booyah! Take that laundry, I’m still on top and ready for round two.

You know your victories are small and you celebrate them where you can find them.

You don’t however remake your bed. Instead you put down a very absorbent old quilt that is already stained and vow to wait until the pukers have puked their last before you’ll actually put all that bedding back in place.

You fall asleep with one hand resting on a bed pan, ready to wake up and intercept bodily fluids at a moments notice. Can’t let laundry get the upper hand.

all content © Carrien Blue

9 thoughts on “You know you are a mom when…

  1. you make vomit and laundry sound so interesting to the normal person haha! Im proud of you & your laundry victory….hope that stays the same throughout the week!

    Megan

  2. Oh, my! Been there and done that! So I completely understand where you’re coming from. Sorry your Saturday didn’t turn out as you’d hoped. Hope your babies are feeling better soon for their sake and yours.

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