Last Night’s Dinner – Revisited

Last Night’s Dinner – Revisited

Many people ring in the New Year with fun games and festivities that last until the wee hours of the morning and sometimes culminate with someone’s head in the toilet reliving their last meal of the previous year. Apparently my family could not wait to end 2017 because we had our all-nighter last night – only there weren’t any games or festivities and it wasn’t fun, but there was a whole lotta puking. (And I would have been lucky if any of it made it to the toilet!)

Let me start by saying that this tale is not for the faint of heart (or stomach) so if words such as spew, heave, splatter and chunk make you want to hurl, just stop reading right here. You’re welcome. If you choose to continue, do so at your own risk.

The evening started like any other. We had a little dinner, hung out a bit as a family, then got the kids in their jammies and ready for bed. Ryan took Cruz to his room for bedtime stories and I climbed into Luke’s loft bed to read stories to him. As we were settling in, Luke said that his tummy hurt and asked for his tummy ache oil (peppermint). I made a smiley face with the oil on his tummy and Ryan grabbed a bucket (just in case) and set it on Luke’s desk which sits about a foot away from the bed and about 2 feet down from where he sleeps (since it is a loft bed). Yeah, you know where this is going…

Cruz crashed pretty quickly so Ryan was able to retire to bed, but Luke tends to want to read entire novels before he dozes off to sleep. We were on our second chapter book when Luke leaned over the side of the bed and his Friday night pizza made an encore performance. My first thought was, “Dang, I didn’t think you ate that much!” and my second thought was, “Why the heck did Ryan put that bucket so far out of the way?”

Now I am no physics expert and could not even begin to tell you how E= MC squared, but I do know that there was a reason why the apple fell on Newton’s head and that when you add momentum to gravity, it tends to cause falling objects to land with such force that they create quite a splash.

And splash it did! All over the wall, all over (and under) the desk, the floor and the puppy (whose bed is below Luke’s.) So with one hand I grabbed the bucket and tried to catch any thing that didn’t already make it out of his mouth and with the other hand, I banged on the wall (which is right next to our bedroom) to roust Ryan from his slumber. It just didn’t seem fair that I should be having all of the fun so I invited Ryan to join the party!

“Babe, get the dog out of here!” I shouted.

He rounded the corner into Luke’s room and quickly assessed the situation. “Oh my God, he puked on the dog!” he announced (in case I was unaware of this detail).

“Yep, and now she’s eating it,” I added. “So get her out of here so I can take care of Luke.”

Now, Ryan does not do well with vomit – his own or anyone else’s. It was basically an unwritten vow at our wedding that I was now the designated puke picker-upper. In all of our years of marriage there was only one occasion when he was forced to have direct contact with a child who was actively vomiting. He was driving one of our girls to confirmation when she started to hurl in the car. He opened the passenger door window and pushed her head out then opened the driver’s door window and puked himself.

So Ryan grabbed the dog by the collar and pulled her away from her super sized serving of regurgitated pizza chunks, but Honey was resisting. I imagine that this reminded her of her early days on the farm when she might have been served “slop.” (I am not sure if “slop” is an actual thing but it resembled the stuff that “Pa Ingalls” referred to as slop when he served it to the farm animals on episodes of Little House on the Prairie. That is pretty much my only reference to farm life.)

Poor Ryan, forced to pick up the puke-encrusted pup, made a dash out of the room as he began to gag and heave himself. I realize that this sounds rather dramatic but that’s just the way we roll in our household.

We finally came to a cease-fire and the relentless puking slowed to a trickle before it eventually stopped. I got Luke into the shower and declared the room a Federal Disaster Area (because I have the authority to do that) and told him that he could seek refuge on the floor next to our bed. Somehow the “floor” turned into our bed and I was squished between Sir Pukes A Lot and Grand Master Heaves. We had one more round of vomit that made it mostly to the trashcan and what didn’t was easily covered with a towel ‘til morning so that we could try to get some sleep.

Apparently Cruz was also invited to this early New Year’s Eve Party because, just as we were nodding off, he made his “casually late” appearance and also climbed into our bed. (If you are keeping track, that now makes four humans and three dogs co-habiting the master bedroom of our house.) Once Cruz climbed in, I thought of the song, “There were ten in the bed and the little one said, ‘I’m crowded. Roll over.” So we all rolled over and Ryan fell out (and went to sleep in Cruzy’s empty bed).”

Shortly thereafter, Luke’s breathing changed, he started to moan and I knew that this was the beginning of Vomit War III. No worries! I had invested greatly in the defense department and I was ready for battle. Bring it on little boy!

He started firing his missiles and I intercepted them with a trash basket. He reloaded his missile launcher and I reloaded that trashcan with another bag, but before I could even see it coming, he brought in re-enforcements for a covert mission. Without warning I was the victim of a sneak attack by his closest ally. Brother #2 began simultaneously firing at me and my resources were quickly being depleted. I was about to surrender in defeat when I realized that I might need to call upon a rogue nation… the snoring spouse from yonder bedroom!

I beckoned, “Babe! Get a bucket! I need another bucket. They are both puking now!”

Like my knight in shining armor, my half-asleep husband dashed onto the battlefield clad in his armor of fruit of the loom boxers and a dazed and confused look on his face. I realized I needed to get him up to speed with the updated battle plan or we were soon going to lose this war!

“Babe, I need you to get another bucket. They are both puking and I only have one bucket.”

“Okay,” he responded to his command only he clearly did not understand his mission. He grabbed a children’s book from the floor (ironically titled “Splat the Cat”) and handed it to me.

“A bucket!” I shouted. “Not a book, a bucket!”

“Oh, okay.”

He was starting to wake up.

“Where do I get one of those?” he asked.

“Under the kitchen sink,” I commanded. Realizing that time was of the essence, I quickly changed defensive maneuvers and shouted, “Never mind – just grab Cruz’s trash can. Hurry!”

As I waited for the artillery, my enemy children held me captive as a prisoner of war. I was clearly losing this battle but I was determined to win the war.

Alas, my sleepy spouse had fumbled through the darkness of night and found my secret weapon! It might have appeared to be a cute, little “Finding Nemo” trashcan but it was all that I needed to win this war and declare victory!

My sidekick retreated to the demilitarized zone of the other bedroom, my enemies eventually ran out of ammunition and I was released from captivity. “Free at last, free at last! Thank God, almighty, I am free at last!”

With love in my heart and disgust in my head, I gently wiped the puke from my boys’ faces. I tenderly laid their sleeping bodies on separate, clean towels and found a spot at the end of the bed that was not covered in vomit to rest my weary head. Sorry, sweetheart, war ain’t pretty. But the smell of victory is so sweet (much sweeter than last night’s pizza – revisited)! I closed my eyes and in my head drew up the plans for tomorrow’s battle; I will call it the Great Laundry War on Sheets and Pillowcases!