Hurling

Posted: January 24, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: family | Tags: , | Leave a comment

The coughing began just after midnight as a far-away noise in the back of my sleeping mind. As I rose to consciousness, I half-thought it was The Princess. Was it The Princess? She hadn’t seemed sick during the day, in fact, all of them seemed to be getting over brief bouts of runny noses, and I had just been thinking that they were all on the mend. If I just lie here, I thought, it will stop and I can drift back to where I was.

The coughing persisted, and then came footsteps down the hall. I groggily thought The Princess was coming to climb into our bed as she has been wont to do (too often) in the past. I prepared to feel her pulling on the footboard and crawling her way up the mattress to settle in between Manfrengensen’s body and mine, her cold feet taking time to warm against my calf under the quilt. The footsteps stopped on my side of the bed, and opening the eye that was farthest from my pillow, I saw that the visitor was Clooney, not The Princess at all. He was hunched over in his striped pj’s, looking quite miserable as he mumbled something that seemed incoherent to me. Still in a groggy state, I assumed he’d had a nightmare, and made a motion for him to climb into bed (the sliver that The Princess would have carved for herself), but then he repeated his words.

“I just threw up,” he said.

Now, he’s not much of a hurler; hasn’t proven himself susceptible to stomach viruses in the past. In fact, I wouldn’t even consider him a placer in this sport that Edison has so often gone for the gold medal in. So when Clooney said, that he’d thrown up, I assumed something trivial, something he’d thought was vomit that was really nothing.

“Okay,” I said, calmly, beginning to swing my legs over to get out of bed.

And then he erupted…like Krakatoa.

I started freaking out, jumping up, and gingerly stepping tipped-toed between what had landed like spin-art on the floor, “Clooney, get to the toilet!” I said, trying not to shout, but the urgency evident in my voice. And then, I had to run after him, repeating “the toilet! Clooney!” as he ran down the hall to the one closer to his bedroom rather than just shortcutting to the master bath on other side of my bed.

By this time, Manfrengensen was chasing after me, chasing after him, and the horror, my god, the horror.

Everywhere.

Master bedroom, upstairs hallway, all over his room, hall bath. We got our son situated back in bed, after stripping everything and taking it down to the laundry. As we cleaned and cleaned and the clock struck one, I shrugged to Manfrengensen, “I guess, he’s just not experienced when it comes to throwing up?”

Manfrengensen looked up from the scrub brush he was using on the rug, and just said, “Clearly.”

Parenting: every day another surprise.

 

A Case of The Mondays

Posted: January 12, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Books, Entertainment, family, television | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

So, yeah, I just mopped the kitchen floor.  I hate mopping.

Last night, just as I was setting dinner on the table, Edison came down with a stomach bug of epic proportions.  It was like that scene in Stand By Me with the pie eating contest. I’m talking everywhere. Not sure he could have hit more surfaces if he had tried. Basically, he ran for the bathroom, and just missed the toilet, and when it splashed off the rim, it hit the rest of the powder room like spin art.

I scoured that room last night, cleaned and disinfected the family room rug, (though I still think we might need to just burn that), and then today I did the kitchen floor with a little more elbow grease than I had the time for last night.

Fun!

Also last night, I watched the second half of Tess of the D’Urbervilles on PBS’s Masterpiece. It was good, but the end was kind of a downer. Plus, you know, it was one of those BBC productions. There are plenty of good looking Brits. You got your Clive Owen, your Jude Law. I don’t swing that particular way, but neither Kate Winslet nor Kate Beckinsale is hard on the eyes. So, what then is with the BBC productions? Other than Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice…with a few exceptions in every production, it’s a lot of horse-faces. We don’t claim to look like Brangelina or anything, but Manfrengensen says it’s like watching a propaganda ad against socialized dentistry.

The actress who played Tess was attractive, but then in the end, don’t want to ruin it for you, but her horse-faced husband ends up with her sister and I kind of felt sorry for them for a number of reasons, the very least of which was their fates.  Not that I am superficial or anything, but you know, if I want to get into a romance, I don’t need Fabio, but for me, they need to throw in a little more eye candy.  I don’t think I am alone here, I mean, that’s why Colin Farrell’s the leading man and Bob Hoskins isn’t. I mean no disrespect to Mr. Hoskins, mind you.  He’s a fine actor, but I don’t want to see him strip down to his tighty whiteys, if you know what I mean.

He's Irish, I know, but you get what I'm saying.

Tess was one of the books we had to read at my Catholic girls high school, along with The Scarlet Letter and A Light In August. The fates of wayward women were big in that literary curriculum.

I have like fifty pages left in Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette. Overall, the book has been excellent.  I think I will read Naslund’s Ahab’s Wife next. Love her writing. Ethereal and accessible. A book I think about all day and cannot wait to find time to get to.