Skip to main content

The Awakening

*** Warning *** This story contains graphic content that childless people should not read.

Dateline - July 10th, 2009, Tukwila, WA, 2:30 AM PDT: I awoke from a sound sleep for no particular reason that I could detect. I prepared to roll over and fall back to sleep when I heard it in the next room - SPLATTER, "gasp!" I lept out of bed, scrambled for a robe, and ran to my son's room. I opened the door and - ewwwww. He was standing a few feet from the door, stupefied. In front of him was a small lake of barf and I had stepped right in it with my bare feet. It's been so long since I have had to get up in the night with him that I thought that my parental radar was no longer functioning. Apparently, I was mistaken.

I told him to stand still a minute and got some towels so I could make a bridge for him to use to cross the lake of barf (LOB) and get to the bathroom. When I got the towels his brain ground back into action and he was able to get to the bathroom where nothing else happened. All better now! Thanks.

I set about cleaning up the LOB, and boy was it a good one. By "a good one" I of course mean horrifying, but a small part of my guy brain could not help but be impressed. We had been out for seafood the evening before and Alex had tried mussels, calamari, crab cakes, clam chowder, chicken alfredo (I realize that is not seafood), a Shirley Temple, and wild berry cheesecake for dessert. Apparently, this was all too much for him, but it made for fairly spectacular puke. He had tried to make it to the bathroom, but he only got about 3 feet away from his door. Still, from this position my 9 year old son was able to hit the door and wall at doorknob level so it was a projectile event. Like a crime sceen investigator I tracked down high velocity ricochet splatter that had flown onto the floor, book cases, and the side wall. He had filled the little crevices in all of the corners of the door frame, too. All in all, it was a pretty thorough job. I worked and worked, thankful that I had wood floors which clean up easily, even as the pile of disgusting towels grew ever larger. When I was done, I had a complete load of dirty towels for my extra capacity, front loading washer. I cleaned, recleaned, disinfected, cleaned again, disinfected again, and by 3 AM it was finally OK to let the boy back into his room. He was feeling perfectly fine at that point and fell right to sleep. I laid awake for quite a while - a combination of adrenalin and disgust kept me awake along with the cat who decided that, because I was out of bed, it must mean that I wanted to pet her. With a cat on my head, and flashbacks of the LOB running through my mind, I finally drifted off to sleep.

Comments

Anthogna said…
*cough* I believe an update is in order?
Tod Bookless said…
Sorry to take so long to post an update. My son has not had a repeat of this epic event, but the cat continues to sleep on my head if she feels that she is being neglected.

Popular posts from this blog

Reducing CO2 in your home the nerd way

For Christmas my wife gave me a Netatmo weather station because I am a home weather station nerd. The Netatmo is very cool, but it has an unexpected feature: it measures indoor Carbon Dioxide (CO2) levels. As soon as I set it up, the Netatmo began to alert that our indoor CO2 was at an unsafe level. The notes said that outdoor CO2 is usually around 400 ppm, and numbers above 1500 ppm could be unhealthy. On that first day, my house was at around 1300 ppm. Prior to that, I never gave indoor CO2 levels a thought. I began to do some research and discovered high levels of CO2 can cause symptoms such as fatigue, headache, breathing difficulties, strained eyes and itchy skin.  My family does have all of these issues, especially on the weekends when we are home all day, but I never connected that to indoor air quality. Previously, I installed a Nest thermostat . The Nest is very smart and saves energy by learning your habits and programming itself. Unfortunately, it is so efficient, that t

Rooftop Playgrounds

This week I have had some meetings in a tall building in downtown Seattle, and when I took a moment to look around and enjoy the view I have noticed playgrounds on rooftops. I saw this daycare playground: and this playground on top of a school: I think that this is a really cool use of space. A friend that grew up in NYC said that her school had a rooftop playground, too. The delinquent in me wonders how many toys and balls go over the side, but I bet the teachers are pretty strict about that. Downtown Seattle has always seemed a little unfriendly towards kids and it is neat to see spaces being carved out.

Dutch Oven Balsamic Chicken Recipe

This is a family favorite that is easy to make. It smells so great right from the start, that the first time I made it, my youngest son walked in the house while I was cooking and yelled, "Daddy! Make that one again!" It started life as a recipe on Delish .com, and I have cooked it several times, making small changes, to make it slightly less pretentious, and to work out issues with the directions. I also doubled the recipe so we end with a few leftovers for lunches. Ingredients  1 c. balsamic vinegar 1/4 c honey 3 tbsp. whole-grain mustard 6 cloves garlic, minced Salt Freshly ground black pepper 8 bone-in, skin on, chicken thighs 4 c. baby red, potatoes - or Brussels sprouts (or both) cut in 8ths (12oz bag) 2 Tbsp. Herbs de Provence 2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil to cook the chicken Preparation Marinade In a large bowl, combine balsamic vinegar, honey, mustard, 1 Tbs Herbs de Provence, and garlic and season with salt and pepper. Whisk until combined.