incident-report

It was nearly 2:30 in the morning. I was in a deep sleep (well a “parental” deep sleep, not very deep). The baby monitor was making a sound—it was Regina. “Ugh.” I thought, “Is Reg trying to wake everyone because she’s awake?”
No. She sounded upset. “Another nightmare” I thought, “She’s been having bad dreams ever since we watched that Harry Potter movie. Better go reset her.” With a groan I began rolling out of bed.
She cried again. No. This cry is different. This is more than a bad dream. She’s in distress. I bolted out of bed and walked straight over to their room. Lydia was halfway down her bunk bed ladder, a scent was hitting me. “Hey Lydie. What’s happening?”
“I was climbing down to tell you and Mommy that Reg puked.” She didn’t need to tell me, my nose delivered the message first. I turned on the light. There was Reggie, looking miserable. Dark brown puke was all over her front, her blanket, her bedding, looks like a couple (ha! Only a couple? I wish!) of her stuffed animals got it too. I returned to our room and flipped on the light. Annie began sitting up, confused and squint-eyed. “Hey Babe, it’s action time.” Annie was instantly awake. I went back toward the room, I gave Lyd an affectionate scratch on the head. “Good job of telling us sweetie, go lay down in our bed while we work on this.”
Annie tucked her in and asked, “What’s going on?”
“We got a puker.”
“Aww poor thing.”
“Mommy, I made mess. In bed.”
What transpired afterward is something that I am awfully proud of. We have a seven-year-old and a three-year-old. This ain’t our first time at the rodeo. We’ve met middle o’ the night upchuck before. We barely spoke. We instantly became the domestic equivalent of a HazMat team and pit crew, just replace the plastic suits with pajamas.
Annie handled the baby end of things. She extracted Reg, wiped her down, got her into fresh jammies and consoled her. I stripped the bed, throwing it all into the bathtub. I pulled the stripped down mattress out and gave it a thorough cleaning and wiping. By then Annie had Regina put back together and set her down to find fresh bedding. She was attracted to the sound of the kitchen wipe sliding across her vinyl mattress, I looked over and she was smiling at me, clutching a new stuffed animal. I looked up at Annie, “How is she?”
“She seems fine. She doesn’t have that vacant look, she doesn’t feel warm, her color’s fine. I think she just had an upset stomach.”
“That’s good news, I’ll keep an eye on her tomorrow.” I turned to her, “Hey Slightly, how are ya feeling?”
“Good. I feel good Daddy.”
“Mattress is ready for you!” Annie grabbed the mattress and began putting the bed back together.
Then it was time for the nasty part – I turned to the bathtub. “Thank God we have a detachable shower head.” I thought as I watched chunks of puke depart from her bedding and make their lemming like race to the drain. How in God’s green earth did she manage to hit every one of her stuffed animals?
“Ooh, I think I see some banana in there.” I heard behind me. Annie dropped a plastic garbage bag on the floor next to me.
“I think you’re right, I see some too. Ugh, she had nanners for dessert! That was hours ago.”
“Anyway, she seems okay. Both girls are back in bed.”
“Good. Could you help me with the blanket?” I stood up and held the blanket up, Annie sprayed off the last bits. I gave it a hard squeeze, watching the stained water wring out over my knuckles. It all went straight to the bag and then downstairs for laundry. I went back up to our room where Annie and I did a fist bump before crawling back into bed.
At 2:27am I woke Annie. At 2:47am we were all back in bed. Not too shabby. Not too shabby at all.