Another odious milestone reached

Well, The Boy’s first barfy flu is in the books. Managed to avoid it for almost six years, too.

Poor little guy came running into the bedroom last night. “Daddy, Daddy, my mouth wants to throw up!”

I bolted for the kitchen and returned with a stainless steel mixing bowl in the nick of time. (I’m not a big proponent of ralphing directly into the toilet. It adds an extra degree of debasement that I find unnecessary when alcohol is not involved.)

I removed him to my office, where he repeatedly assured me it was the three baby carrots we had forced him to eat at dinner earlier in the evening that made him sick. After some Big Chair Time I packed him back off to bed.

Just as I was falling asleep a while later, he came running back into the bedroom, panic in his voice this time. “Daddy! I’m gonna throw up again!” I grabbed the stainless steel bowl and dove across the room, landing on my knees and skidding to get the bowl into position, again, just in the nick of time.

I took him back into my office and spent some more Big Chair Time with him. I also gave him some Children’s Tylenol (or Advil, I don’t know) to ward off a potential fever.

Once again I packed him off to bed with the best intentions; once again, I was awakened apparently just after I had fallen into a deep slumber, because this time he woke The Missus before me. And all three of us huddled there on the floor together, and our poor little guy puked up the kiddie aspirin he had ingested less than an hour before.

Thank God his mother can sleep anywhere. She stayed on the floor with him (after I had fetched pillows and blankets) and I slunk off to bed like the non-caring/nurturer I am for a couple hours of sleep to rub together. Unfortunately, she had to leave this morning for a six-day job-work-confereence thingie in Florida...

So you can imagine how relieved I was this morning when he woke up and seemed to be feeling better. We gave him a trace amount of Gatorade to get some electrolytes back in his system and he really seemed to be on the rebound. Confidence was high!

Cue the second-act crisis...

He was actually in a deep slumber with the dog (below) when the power went out in the whole neighborhood and the goddamn battery back-up unit that cost us an arm and a leg didn’t do anything but shut down my iMac before I had time to transfer the files I was working on to a thumb drive. It was just as well The Boy was sleeping, as it made it unwise for me to scream the frustration I felt.

About the time the power came back on (needless to say, I am backing up frequently—okay, obsessively—at this point), The Boy woke up, flushed and groggy. He was panicky again and as soon as we got the bowl in place, thick, red hoik proceeded to splash forth. Even as he was in mid-hurl, he had the presence of mind to croak out, “It’s just the red juice, Daddy…” then as soon as he could speak again, he repeated it.

Which I’m frankly grateful for. I had forgotten all about the cherry Gatorade and was seeing blood—lots of blood!—and mentally charting a route to the nearest E.R. Which we may still end up visiting if I can’t get some liquids into this kid to stay. But that is a problem for after I get today’s paper to bed.

Because it’s only 1:40 pm. Not even twelve hours since the first yawp, and still so very much could go wrong. The weather remains crappy outside—promising more unexpected power outages—and The Boy hasn’t stirred from his spot on my office floor for hours except to throw up.

A perfect storm could yet be brewing.