A Christmas Story

Family

Friends, I have a special Christmas story for you today. One full of wonder and wide-eyed children. Of laughter and tears. Of …

Of …

Vomit.

Last week was a wee bit rough, despite the fact that we are all filled with Christmas joy and great anticipation – Jude caught the stomach bug that’s been buzzing around to all the kids. And it was not pretty. There was middle-of-the-night vomiting (in our bed, of course) along with a lovely episode over at the Bagel Cafe. I don’t know if I can show my face again.
All that to say, this was how I was looking by mid-week:

side note: Why does my neck look so weird in that photo? Weird.

And yet, Simon was still going strong.

Finally by Thursday (read: Mother’s Day of Joy Out), I figured he had been over the retching for a few days, the fever was gone, and all was well with the world. Not so.

Thursday afternoon, right before I was to show up at school w/ accoutrements for the class Christmas party, I got a call from the school saying he had thrown up pretty profusely and I was all:

But when I got to school, Jude looked like this, except replace the chicken w/ a sugar cookie:

So I’m thinking:

And Simon said:

Easy for you to say. Hrmph.

So we decided to continue on with our plan to go to the school Christmas program of nephews Matthew & Luke. I mean, why not? He seemed fine.

It was a fluke, I tell you.

After dinner of two scrambled eggs and some mandarin oranges, we loaded into the car. Jude’s a chatterbox and loves to talk, so it was about the time that I noticed he was no longer speaking that doubt crept into my mind. Like Miss Clavel in the classic Madeline, I held up my proverbial finger and thought, “Something is not right.”

My doubt was further confirmed when, as we sat on the 5th row of the church (a HUGE church, mind you), he did not express any interest in seeing his cousins. Then, he fell sound asleep in my lap – weird, considering it was nowhere near bedtime.

Well, not 5 minutes after the Christmas program started, Jude sat up on my lap in the haze of sleep and began to cough. Then, I swear, like it was in slow motion.

In a move straight out of a horror movie, the kid began to vomit like I have never seen. And since there was nothing else to catch it but me and my clothes … well, that’s exactly what I did.

Those of you who don’t have kids yet are probably horrified, and are probably saying what Simon was thinking:

I mean, there was nothing else to do but let him finish throwing up, and it was all down my shirt, all wrapped up in my scarf, soaked down through my sweater into my bra, and covering my jeans.

But did I mention we were on the fifth row of the enormous church? So we had to haul it all the way up the aisle without dropping scrambled eggs down the aisle like Hansel & Gretel. OH – and the video camera that was set up to record the Christmas program? Yup – right behind us.

IT

WAS

AWFUL.

For the record, I am really glad that it’s Christmas break from school, so I don’t have to show my face around those parts for awhile.

Moral of the story: Trust your gut. No pun intended.

with love,
Rachel

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