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Wednesday, June 05, 2013

Kids are so fun

Last night we got some fabulous news: a new baby cousin is on their way! Emily is expecting a baby in January and just had an ultrasound done yesterday to firm up her due date. We're thrilled! After momentarily thinking Emily was announcing that I had another baby in my tummy (those ultrasound pictures all look the same) but then realizing that it would have been ludicrous for Emily and Morgan to be making that kind of announcement, Rachel quickly pieced things together and started jumping up and down, screaming with joy (she wants the new cousin to be a boy and hopes that he'll enjoy Star Wars) so loudly that she scared Benjamin, who started to cry.

Miriam would have joined in the fray except that she was on her deathbed: fever close to 104F, rolled up in a ball, complaining of an aching tummy, an aching head, an aching body.

After speaking with Auntie Em (who, incidentally, is feeling quite similar to Miriam, only on a daily basis for several weeks now) we called Grandma to let her know that the cat was out of the bag. We figured she knew long before us (and she had). We got all our excitement about Auntie Em's baby out of the way and then settled down to tell Grandma what was new...since Sunday, which is when we last spoke with her.

Not a lot happens in two days, so we shared a lot of mundane information.

"I ate the first pea!" Rachel exclaimed loudly.

"No," Miriam objected from the couch.


"I did! I ate the first pea! We saw it in the garden and mom picked it and handed it to me and I ate the whole thing! The very first pea from the garden and I ate it!"

"No," Miriam croaked. "I did."

Grandma was having a hard time making out what Rachel was saying because...you know how I said we settled down to tell Grandma about our lives? I was kidding. We didn't really settle down. Rachel was still bouncing off the walls with excitement.

"What did you do?" Grandma asked for clarification.

"I ate the first pea!" Rachel repeated.

"She didn't!" Miriam objected from beneath her silky blankey.

"From the garden—the peas! They're getting big! We picked one today and ate it! I did! I ate the first pea!"

"No, I did it!"

"I ate the first pea!"

"I did!" came the weak protest.

"I ate the first pea!"

"I did!" Miriam whispered in exasperation.

Poor Miriam, who was having feverish dreams of people swimming in tomato soup (she hates tomato soup) and could hardly lift her head off her pillow, was having a fit about who ate the first pea pod from the garden.

"Yes, Miriam," I soothed. "You had the first pea pod from the garden a couple of days ago while Rachel was at school. But Rachel doesn't know about that so she thinks she got the first one and she kind of did because she got the first one from today. It's okay."

Satisfied, Miriam snuggled back down in her sickbed.

"My tummy hurts," she complained later, moving off the blanket I put underneath her (to catch any accidental messes) to the other half of the couch.

"Do you need a throw up bowl?" I asked.

"No. It just hurts. I'm not going to throw up."

"Here's one just in case," I said.

By age three I feel that Rachel had a pretty firm grip on the use of throw up bowls, but she has a lot more experience with throwing up than Miriam does and Miriam simply didn't recognize her tummy spasms for what they were.

*Burp* She burped. And then out it came.

Sadly, she was flat on her back and it was as thick as applesauce (an apple being the last thing she'd eaten hours and hours previously) so it just pooled up on her face.

"Quick! Help her!" I shouted to Andrew (since I was busy wrangling Benjamin who had been out of sorts since Rachel found out she was getting a cousin).

"Don't move!" he instructed.

She didn't. She stayed perfectly still, her mouth wide open and full of vomit that just kept coming out.

"Quick! She's going to suffocate or something!"

Because, yes, that thick applesauce-like substance had bubbled up and over her nose. Oh, it was vile.

Andrew grabbed the throw up bowl and tipped Miriam's face inside. The throw up that had collected on her face slid into the bowl where she kept on vomiting. When she was finished Andrew helped her into the tub while I cleaned up the couch.

It was quite the evening. And it's been quite the week or couple of weeks. How many vomit-filled days are we at now? Eleven? Twelve?

Kids are so fun! I'm so happy for Emily!

2 comments:

  1. Ah, I don't know whether or not to believe you. Sorry to read that your children are (have been) sick. You'd think all those bugs would go away with winter.

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  2. I especially liked your last sentence.

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