Mother Puke Warrior

I heard the girls get up this morning and go looking for their Santa gifts. They had to hunt a bit, because while our tree is upstairs, our 'fireplace' is downstairs and I thought it would be fun to put the gifts where they were not expecting them. Well they were found ASAP! But then I could hear Teena and Teena did not sound right. She did not want to open her gifts she wanted to lay on the couch and she asked Daddy to open them for her. After some time of us asking her was she ok, and did anything hurt she finally said her tummy hurt. Genea meanwhile is loving every single thing she opens. WOW! This is my Favorite! Oh WOW! Christmas really is for kids, it was so much fun to watch her be so excited. Genea has a terrible time with focus and concentration because of her hyper vigilance so I tried to get her things that she could do while she maintains her vigilance. That probably sounds weird, but it works.

About 9am, I heard The Sound. I am pretty sure the mom's of the world who might read this know The Sound. It is actually almost imperceptible when it begins, it is more a difference of breath. Ordinary civilians are not able to detect it. The breath goes into a mild guttural noise that progressively gains volume until it becomes a gag. And then....puke. My poor little Teena was sick today. Whether it is stomach flu or food poisoning, this kid is sick. She probably threw up 7-8 times. She could not keep anything down. Not water, not gatorade, not the peanut butter and jelly sandwich The Husband gave her because he could not stand to hear her be so sad because she wanted to eat (he corralled that particular incident per my instructions of don't be an idiot but if you are going to you better make sure she has somewhere for that sandwich to go when it returns). She puked when her stomach was empty and, most memorably, puked her pepto bismol.

I discovered something today about myself. Some people can play the guitar. Some folks are great with numbers. I am really good, freakishly good, at catching puke on its way out of its victims mouth. I was never any good at catching a ball for sports, or catching food in my mouth. But when it comes to puke, well, Not ONE drop of vomit went anywhere but its designated bowl. Not. One. Drop. And believe me, the opportunities were prevalent. And Teena? She is a good little puker herself. About half the incidents she gave us an early warning saying, I'm gonna explode! I'm exploding! For the other half, I would hear The Sound and I swear my feet grew wings and never even hit the floor. Flying in the air to get a bowl to puke in and then racing back to the victim. It was magical. Magical.

This poor little girl just had a rotten time all day. Since we were supposed to go to family out of town for the next couple days, we did not have much food in the house. Whatever Teena has, she is still hungry and she is still thirsty. But she cannot eat or drink, even a teaspoon of water made her blow. She was miserable. Genea and I had frozen hamburgers for dinner, we shoved them down as fast as we could because Teena just sobbed and sobbed she was so hungry! She would have little bursts of energy all day where she would hop up and start to play with her new toys and then... splat...another puke.

So on the bright side, we all avoided our yearly obligation to Cousin Uni- Bitch. We did several days of gifts with the girls, so they would not get overwhelmed with everything at one time and then go play with some old crayons (ya' know how kids do that? funny). So we opened from out of town relatives on Tuesday, then Christmas Eve we did our family gifts, then today was Santa. It would also have been my family, but we got to most of it and Teena got to be all excited and crazy for the first few days there. A last bright spot, Genea was nervous and flaky all day what with all the changes and such, which I expected. But she was a great big sister to Teena and really tried to be nice to her and make things easier for her.