Awry. All of it. Awry.

Notice, not even Scotchgard protecting the rug.

You know that terrifying silence you awake to, knowing that you overslept?  That nothingness you hear the second before you go from prone to standing, frantically looking for the time on your alarm clock?

Replace that silence with the sound of a two year old vomiting, and you'll be right where I was at 5 o'clock this morning.  Confused.  Frantic.  Irrational. 

See that teeny pitcher?  I tripped on it rushing toward LL with a towel.

Thankfully, there was a bath towel on the floor near Lakeland, which was quickly swooped up and held near her face. 
Woefully, the towel served as a mere prop as she emptied her guts under, over and beside it.  This whole scene was about to become a seven hour dramedy, in which I played the part of a one-man assembly line, an incompetent nurse, a poorly trained maid, and a frazzled first time mom, and Lakeland played the part of 2 year old with the stomach flu. 

Let's start with the towel.  A towel.  For catching barf.  Why, why, why, did I choose a towel over say, a bucket?  Or a pan?  Or a bowl?  It's not like I have some distant memory of my mom running toward me with a towel when I was sick as a child.  She was a normal mom that brought me a normal bucket to puke in, while sitting next to me on the bathroom floor.  All very normal.

But normal didn't happen over here in "Erin panicked and could not properly use her brain" land.  This is a land where, if a fire were to break out and someone yelled for me to get some water, I would quickly run and fetch the nearest colander.

Warning:  One tablespoon of Gatorade = 1 quart of vomit

Poor Lakeland.  She was so, so sick.  And stuck here with a novice nurse. The first few times she vomited, she had a rather juvenile warning system in place.   She'd whimper, then make that herking noise that dogs and cats make before barfing, which would give me just enough time to run and grab a TOWEL to shove in her face.  Each time, the episode concluded with the towel, the kid, the furniture, the leased carpet and the mom, all covered in vomit.  And I'd just sit there like a mannequin, a very dumb and ditzy mannequin that should have been in the tiled bathroom, and wonder what I should do next.

Fighting every one of my natural instincts to start cleaning the carpet, I lovingly cooed to Lakeland that she was so so brave, while taking her vile clothing off and and putting her in the tub.  And each and every time I removed her from the tub and wrapped her in one of our clean, but diminishing supply of towels, she'd poop.  Everywhere.

All I could think of was the growing list of stuff that needed to be cleaned, and after getting her diapered and re-pajama-ed,  I'd stick her in front of the TV with a Gatorade and some crackers.  Then I'd turn all ping pong ball and run crazily from the bathroom to the washing machine to the puke/poop-carpet to the bathroom, over and over again, double fisting bottles of cleansers, while accomplishing nothing.


I finally came up with a method that I'll not describe it here, as it is disgusting and you might never want to step foot in my home, but suffice it to say, I would have made Eli Whitney and Henry Ford proud with my swift methods. 

By noon, Lakeland was in her 5th (and original) set of pajamas, and I was experiencing the natural high that some runners describe:  a euphoria that I'd reached my maximum potential on a biological and psychological level.  As a barf cleaner.  Though it's more likely that I had spent nearly 7 hours awash in the fumes of OxyClean, Woolite carpet cleaner, Arm and Hammer detergent and Ms. Meyers, all mixed with that vinegary vomit smell, that was making me feel so high.