They Lied.

I've never been good with puke.  I've never enjoyed puking (although, come to think of it, I can't think of anyone that does enjoy that...), watching someone puke (again, no one pops into mind as having this favorite past time), seeing puke (I know there are some people it doesn't bother), or worst of all, the smell of puke.

For 10 years, my students have all heard the same thing on the first day of school.  I won't be mad if you get sick in my classroom, but I WILL knock your friends over as I am running at a high rate of speed outside the classroom for fresh air and scenery.  It's just a fact of life.  I can handle a lot.  Blood, loose teeth, broken bones, seizures, emergencies...everything BUT puke.

Once I had a baby, everyone said his puke would be different.  I mean really, Reilly puked for the first 9 months of his life.  Multiple times a day.  Everytime he ate.  All over me.  All over the floor.  All over his bed.  Everywhere.  But it was baby puke.  It didn't smell.  It wasn't chunky.  It was just baby puke.

Thankfully, Reilly hasn't puked big boy puke since his acid reflux relaxed so I haven't had to test the "It'll be different" theory everyone has always told me about.

Until Wednesday.  Wednesday was different.  It was on Wednesday that Reilly puked.  Big Boy Puke!

I went to get him out of bed like our normal routine and was immediately greeted with a smell in his room that wasn't fresh roses.  My first thought was, "Wow, Daddy forgot to throw out a dirty diaper."  Upon further investigation with my sniffer, I realized it wasn't poop.   It was something else.  Something not pleasant.  Something like PUKE.

I walked carefully.  Watching every step, looking right, left, right and left again.  I didn't see any evidence of last night's dinner.  (Which happened to be hot dogs, yogurt and applesauce.)  I figured my over-sensitive sniffer had led me astray and continued on with the process of getting Reilly to wake up and getting him to commit to being vertical for the day.

Our process usually goes like this.  Light on, back rubbing, talking softly, convince Reilly to stand up, grab Reilly and Dottie (his very favorite blue polka-dotted blanket that he never leaves bed without), snuggle for about 30 seconds, get dressed, discuss day, brush teeth and hair, get snack and head to Ms. Betsy's.  It's like a well-oiled machine.

After our routine back rubbing, saying good morning, talking about his dreamies and discussing our day, I was still noticing the smell and couldn't figure out what was going on.  I had started to mentally prepare and resigned myself to the fact that there was going to be a very nasty diaper to deal with and picked Reilly up.

That's when everything went wrong.  I mean EVERYTHING!  I picked up Reilly, flung Dottie over my shoulder and that's when it hit me.  LITERALLY.  It hit me.  THE PUKE.  Sometime during the night, my poor little man had gotten sick all over the beloved Dottie and I had just flung it over my shoulder.  Onto my shirt.  Brushing my face in the process.  Did I mention that he had hot dogs, yogurt and applesauce for dinner Tuesday?

Routine broken.  Time for a shower.  We don't normally budget our time for a morning shower.  Plans change.  We were in crisis mode.  I DON'T DO PUKE.

Thankfully, the events of Wednesday morning were an isolated event.  He's been fine ever since.  He was fine that morning.  I wasn't.

My lesson--Those people that told me it would be different when it was my son's puke...THEY LIED.

He Did WHAT????

When people ask how old Reilly is, my automatic response is, "Very TWO!"  Most people get it.  They get that he's all sorts of energy.  They get that he's full of mischief. They get that he challenges me.  They get that I'm exhausted.  They get that him smiling means he's probably done something he shouldn't have.  They get that HE'S TWO!  He's just TWO.

So, our normal pick up from the babysitter's consists of how many time outs (we've been on a roll here lately...none in the past couple of days), what he had for lunch, what he spent free time doing and so on. 

Ms. Betsy is amazing.  Simply amazing.  She has daycare down to a Science.  I don't control my 5th graders nearly as well as she controls her two year olds.  I realize more and more that I don't pay her nearly what she is worth.  She is also pretty rigid when it comes to some things.  One of those things is her rule of NO TOUCHING THE BABIES.

Welllllllllllll.....she just had a new baby start about 3 weeks ago.  And Reilly loves him some babies.  So the no touching thing is hard.  VERY hard.

The other day, they were having free time before nap, and Ms. Betsy was holding the baby.  Reilly walked over to her and wanted to see the new wiggly girl in pink.  He was reminded that they look with their eyes, not with their hands.  Twice he was reminded. 

Two reminders.  And my very TWO year old sticks out his skinny little pointer finger and touches the baby's knee.  Right in front of Ms. Betsy.  And if that's not bad enough, looks right at her and says, "Touch."  She reminded him again, "Reilly, no touching the babies."  He AGAIN, looks right at her, sticks out that little finger, touches the baby's knee and says, "Touch."  All while giggling.

Ms. Betsy again goes to say, "Reilly, no touching the babies" and what does my son do????

HE SHUSHED THE BABYSITTER.

Walked right up to her, put his fingers to his lips and said, "SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

My son shushed the babysitter.

Oy!

And that was the day my son had to go to bed 5 minutes earlier than all his friends at Ms. Betsy's.