sick transit
Last month our friend Katie wrote a very brief blog post that nevertheless speaks volumes about parenthood. Leah was a little more verbose on the same subject, but the sentiment is similar. Parenting means coming in contact with vomit, more vomit than you have ever had to deal with at any other stage of your life (including college, you young people, no matter how much you and your friends drank).
The worst part of it is—worst for everyone involved—even big almost-pre-schoolers like Harvey don't really know what's going on with the acute stomach pains followed by coughing followed by you-know-what. There's no desperate dash to the bathroom, nor even any awareness that such a thing might be advisable; on the contrary, Harvey associates any gestures designed to mitigate the mess of being sick—sitting up, a towel held in front of him, and so on—with the terror of vomiting itself, so he resists them with all his meager, sickness-addled strength. Or sometimes he's just asleep and gets sick all over the himself and the pillow like earlier this evening. At least he's so wiped out that, as soon as he's cleaned up, he's desperate to get back to sleep.
He's only thrown up twice this evening but he's definitely down for the count—at least now he's sleeping rather than lying crying on the floor, which is how Leah tells me he spent nearly all of the day today. Zion is also sleeping through his own sickness, if by sleeping you mean occupying the bed and crying out in pathetic discomfort every fifteen minutes or so. Leah has been keeping him company since about 6:30 this evening. If she gets any rest in between wakeups it'll be a grand help to her long-enduring cold.
Hopefully a good night's sleep will see us all restored, otherwise heaven knows what'll happen tomorrow!
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Looking back on old posts it seems like Harvey's thrown up so many times he should know what it's all about, but he clearly doesn't. Poor little guy.
dude. so sorry...we're not sick w/ throw up as much as evil eye goop and apparently ear infections they never complained about ...opps. I hope we all get better soon!
Haha, it turns out Zion has an ear infection too. Happily Harvey was completely recovered this morning, and Zion went to the doctor this afternoon and got medicine, so hopefully by the weekend we'll be in a bit better shape. We're praying for you guys!