Alright, everyone. We need to address something, and we need to address it now.
Vomit.
And kids.
Vomiting kids!
Yep, it’s high time we discuss this traumatic yet weirdly tacit epidemic happening in households (and, in my case, airplanes) across the world. I am very sorry if this is an off-putting or even repulsive topic for you to casually read about, but honestly, it needs to be talked about more. Because it has kind of scarred me for life. And no one even slightly warned me about this gruesome yet prevalent part of parenthood. (So really, you only have yourselves to blame. Major side-eye to every last one of you.)
Let’s back up a bit. Before I became a mom, I knew full well that there would be some not-so-glamorous aspects of the job. I really feel like I was aware of the impending diaper blowouts, snotty noses, spit-ups, lots of drool, weird rashes, mushy baby food splattered all over me, and so on. What I was not prepared for—mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually—was the issue of kids vomiting. And I’m not talking about mere spit ups—ha! THAT’S CHILD’S PLAY. I’m talking about the real freakin’ deal.
It might sound silly and elementary, but I just wasn’t prepared for the whole ordeal of a baby or toddler getting the stomach bug and vomiting everywhere. My friends and sisters-in-law didn’t really ever talk about it when it was happening to them with their kids; my mom has never told me about any traumatic bouts of vomit when I was a baby. Yet the times it has now happened to my kids and me are FOREVER DEEPLY ETCHED INTO MY MIND and still make me visibly shudder when I think back on them. I’m certain I have a undiagnosed PTSD from it and probably need some sort of therapy to unpack all of my complex fears and emotions surrounding it.
Which is why I’m writing about it now, to hopefully better prepare new parents out there. (I’m also writing it for seasoned veteran parents who passionately celebrate the mantra “misery loves company,” much like I do).
Before I go on, I should state that I know I have several things working against me here, first and foremost being that I am a raging germophobe with extreme OCD tendencies. And, like, not the kind of OCD that girls love to brag about (“I HAVE to organize my closet by color because I’m soOoOo OCD!!! LOL!”). No. The kind of OCD that is diagnosed by people with a lot of letters after their name and that sort of makes your life a living hell until you figure out how to kind of control it. The kind that wishes it cared about organizing closets by color because that would be a heck of a lot more fun than obsessing about contracting HIV from a grocery cart handle!
Also, it should be noted that I have a super intense fear of throwing up. It causes me immense anxiety to think about having to do it. I never knew that was a “thing” until I found myself deep in the Interwebs on some questionable throw up message board for moral support (I frequent many a questionable message board, it’s somewhat of a hobby of mine) and found the official term is “emetophobia.”
Lastly, maybe this part of parenthood is so scary to me because we have had two horrific vomiting experiences in this past calendar year alone. And I’m admittedly not good at math but fact that we can have TWO of these in ONE year seems like a pretty terrifying ratio.
When your kid gets sick, there are a few different ways it can all go down. The first way is fast and furious, catching you way off guard and making your heart pound out of your chest. I’ll never forget the very first time Scout got the stomach bug; she was 14 months old and we had just left a high school football game at MBA on a chilly Friday night. She’d been acting fine, so we were completely freaked out when we heard her suddenly retching from the baby monitor and then screaming and crying. We bolted upstairs to find her crib—and her—completely covered in throw up. It was also on the pretty rug underneath her crib, on her blankets, on her lovey… you get the picture.
My husband just stood there, frozen with horror. But if you’re a woman, then you know how freaking kick-ass we are in stressful situations. Fight or flight kicks in and we just get.to.WERK. Amiright, ladiez? Without missing a beat, I immediately started dishing out commands like a respected war general back in ‘Nam (that’s short for “Vietnam” for you non-war generals): “Bart, I’ll strip her clothes off, you take her and throw her in the tub right now. Then I’ll strip the sheets and start cleaning out the crib. Now! Hut hut hut!” (In hindsight, that last part might’ve been a sports term, but that’s neither here nor there.) It’s a flurry of paper towels and Clorox and new bedding and air freshener and prayers sent up to The Big Guy that it doesn’t happen again that night.
The other way it can happen might even be worse: when you totally know it’s coming. The mental turmoil of that anticipation kind of cripples you as you know your kid is sick, they’re complaining about their tummy and saying they want to throw up, so you just sit there holding a trash can under their face, waiting for Doomsday to roll in. You’re totally screwed, and you know it.
So, I guess it’s time that I reveal The Big Barf Traumas of 2018. (What can I say, I give the people what they want, you know?)
In April of this year, we took a trip to San Diego with Barton’s whole family—eight kids, eight adults. Aside from the fact that we embarked on a five hour flight with a psycho two year old and a clingy six month old and then had to share a hotel room with said offspring for five whole days, things were going pretty well the first two days of the trip.
Then, on the third night, my husband was up all night throwing up.
If you know me at all, then you know the idea of being cooped up in a hotel room with someone who is vomiting is enough to make me fling my body off of the hotel balcony and into the shallow hotel pool beneath it. I was trapped in this petri dish of germs: I couldn’t run, I couldn’t hide, and I was sharing a BED with this monster. This monster that was possibly infecting his wife and innocent children with the stomach bug.
First thing in the morning I ushered the kids down to their cousin’s room, demanded that Barton go lay in his parents’ extra bed in their room (sorry, in-laws, but it was every Simmons for themselves at that point), then frantically begged room service to come clean our room—or pour kerosene over it and burn it down to the ground, preferably.
That was a Wednesday morning. Barton spent the entire day in bed, while I spent the entire day paralyzed with fear, massive knots in my stomach literally just waiting until the kids and I started to throw up. Yay, vacation!
But Wednesday came and went, and no one else threw up.
Thursday came and went, and again, no one else threw up.
Thursday night, as I sipped a celebratory glass of wine, I kicked my feet up and thought to myself how silly it was of me to waste so much time worrying. We had evaded catching the stomach bug! I didn’t have to murder my husband!
Then Friday morning came. And I felt… off.
We were packing to leave for the airport so I just powered through, doing all the things one must do to get two small children and a husband packed and out the door in a timely manner. But by the time I boarded the plane, my face was literally green. I knew I had caught the bug, and I also knew I had a five hour plane ride staring me in the (green) face. So the panic set in. Big time.
However, right after the plane took off, I didn’t really have time to panic about myself… because Scout, my then two year old, climbed in my lap and told me her tummy hurt.
Sh*t.
I tried to busy her and distract her with games, crafts, the crap in the bottom of my purse. And about an hour into the flight, as she was standing right in between my legs looking at my phone, she casually opened her mouth and vomited. ALL. OVER. ME.
Fight or flight again— only this time not as steadily or gracefully. I shrieked and jumped up, and I was shaking. I handed her over to Barton and I ran to the bathroom to try and clean myself up and grab some water and paper towels.
Side note: you should’ve seen the other passengers faces as I ran past their plane seats with vomit dripping off of me, probably brushing against some of them in my haste. I’ve never felt like an entire big group of people wanted me dead more so than that moment, and I’ve pissed off a lot of big groups of people in the past, trust me!!!
Once I was alone in the bathroom, I shut the door tight and just cried for a minute. Probably not the best use of my time, but it was all I could do right then. Next, I stripped off my jacket and started trying to clean my pants and shoes off. But I didn’t need a few thin, flimsy airplane bathroom tissues and some hand sanitizer—I needed a hot shower, preferably one that spewed straight bleach in lieu of water, and an entire new outfit.
Which brought me to the next problem. I had no other clothes in my carry-on bags, so my brother-in-law handed me the only shirt he had in his bag. So there I was, in a men’s Large golfing polo shirt with vomit pants, vomit shoes and a child who was still vomiting.
And oh yes, I should mention that I myself was still feeling deathly ill. I was taking care of a vomiting child when all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball—and probably vomit myself.
Scout sat down in the seat next to us and Barton and I just rubbed her back as she threw up into a trash bag on the plane. Then, suddenly, when she was done with one of her sessions, I felt it really wash over me… and I grabbed her trash bag from her and began throwing up into it myself.
So yeah, my daughter and I shared a barf bag together, back and forth, back and forth. Kinda sweet I guess, right? Some good quality bonding time. And all the while, my poor sixth month old was screaming because she wouldn’t let anyone else hold her except for me.
Have I scarred you for life yet??? No? Good, let’s soldier on.
Cut to last week, when my 14 month old got her first stomach bug on Monday night. We ran in to find she had thrown up all in her crib, yada yada yada… you know how that sob story goes. We brought her into our bed and held a trash can under her until she finally fell asleep. She woke up totally fine the next day, and I exhaled a little bit, convincing myself it was just some weird fluke and not a bug.
Cut to Wednesday. Barton had just left for a four-day trip, and naturally that night Scout says the dreaded phrase: “Mommy, my tummy hurts.”
Sh*t.
Call me Proactive Patty, but I didn’t put her in her bed that night. I had a gut feeling, so instead, I lined my entire bed with towels, retrieved a trash can and sat next to her, waiting for what I thought was about to come.
Sure enough, about an hour later she started throwing up, and I felt a weird sense of pride for correctly predicting it/being fully prepared to swoop in with the trusty trash can. She threw up for a few hours off and on until passing out asleep next to me.
As I settled into bed to try to sleep, I felt that familiar feeling wash over me… and, fast and furiously, the bug hit me too.
My heart sank, because I knew the misery that lie ahead of me: dealing with a sick kid alone while you’re husband is gone is already tough enough, but then getting sick YOURSELF simultaneously is on another level. In between running to the bathroom to throw up, Scout would wake up to throw up too, so I’d have to hurry back in and launch myself across the bed to catch it in the trash can. Later into the night, somewhere around 3 am, she would get up and come into the bathroom with me when I’d go throw up—and stand there demanding for me to fetch her some water “with ice,” or yelling that she wanted me to go turn on a show for her. Try reasoning with a three year old while you’re hunched over the toilet during the middle of the night violently throwing up; it’s about as horrific as it sounds, guys.
All together I think I got about two hours of sleep, off and on, and then both the kids popped up at 6 am. Scout was totally fine; I was not. At all. Damn these kids and their resiliency. I was miserable and truly could not wrap my head around the fact that I had to get up and parent while feeling like death warmed over, then run over by an 18-wheeler, then warmed over again. Then run over again.
Did I mention the teensy, weensy detail that Barton was out of town? I did? Twice? Okay, cool, just making sure I slipped that special little detail in there!
The thing about stomach bugs and kids is that, even when you’re better, still no one wants to play with you. And by that I mean moms are terrified to book play dates with you for fear of catching any residual germs. And the thing about husbands traveling is that play dates are sort of LIFE when you’re a stay-at-home mom living that single parent life. Do you get where I’m going with this? You’re home alone with two kids, but you can’t go anywhere and you can’t hang out with anyone else, because everyone has been sick. So you proceed to go nine kinds of crazy and start fights with your husband via text message every hour, on the hour, and that’s just the beginning of the downward spiral.
But listen, mamas: the point is, I survived it! And, (much) more importantly, I lost five whole pounds from it! So I mean really, it was all worth it in the end, obviously.