TMIT: What’s That Smell?

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If you get queasy at even the mention of vomit, you should probably skip this one.

I spent a year and a half of my time in Austin nannying for a family with two little boys that I adored. R and A were by far my favorite children that I’ve watched, and they still hold a very special place in my increasingly-less-enfatuated-with-children heart.

Naptime was part of our daily routine. R had grown old enough that he didn’t always nap, so we had a deal: he had to lay down and rest for one hour. If, at the end of one hour when I came to check on him, he was still awake, then he was allowed to get up and come downstairs to play. However, since I was sometimes a *little* lazy (and he was still too young to tell time), I would be very sneaky about checking on him. If he looked almost asleep I would often leave him for a little over an hour.

This particular day, he was napping on the couch in his parents’ suite while A was passed out in their bed. The couch is located down two steps and sort of around the corner from the door, so stealthy checking up required very slow movements. I crack the door and am instantly hit by a not-very-pleasant smell. After peeking my head around the corner to discover that R is out cold on the couch, I decide to investigate what could possibly be so rank.

I thought maybe A had a diaper situation or something, so I creep over to the bed and start to pull the covers back. Just as I realize what’s happened, he wakes up and is instantly screaming at the top of his lungs…

He has thrown up in his sleep and ROLLED AROUND IN IT. The kid is covered in puke. Puke that reeks of rancid milk.

You see, the boys each got a sippy cup full of chocolate milk to take to bed with them. And apparently, A’s had not stayed in its proper place in his stomach.

I immediately begin trying to calm him down, but he is having none of it. I try to convince him that he’s just spilled his milk, no big deal! I then pick him up, holding him as far out from my body as I can, and set him on the tile in the bathroom floor. He is still screaming his mother-loving head off with R asleep less than 5 feet away and absolutely refusing to let me take his vomit-covered clothes off of him.

Of course, it’s the ONE week that his mom is out of town on business. Dad is always the one traveling, but not this week. This week, Dad is in town and Mom is far, far away. So I pick up the phone to inform him about our situation while A continues to wail like he’s being beaten with abandon. R is still sound asleep, only at this point he’s somehow moved himself from the couch to the floor.

Twenty minutes of bloody murder screaming later, and I’ve managed to calm him down and get him out of his puke-covered clothing but cannot talk him into taking a bath. So I take a washcloth and sponge bath the vomit off of his face, out of his hair, from between his toes (YES. I KNOW). He’s shaking like he’s freezing, so I put him in some footie pajamas and suggest he lay down on the couch.

I would like to pause at this point in my story to inform you that I do not handle vomit well. I hate doing it, I hate smelling it and I REALLY hate hearing it. At this point, as far as I’m concerned, this child is a ticking time bomb that could explode at any minute. And yet? I was surprisingly calm and not nauseous through the whole ordeal. That, my friends, is love.

Now, where were we? Right. He lays on the couch for about ten minutes but is clearly not going to go back to sleep, so I ask him if he’d like to go downstairs. I set him up in front of Little Einsteins and proceed to strip the vomit-covered bed and start some laundry. After about twenty minutes, he’s running around the house like nothing has happened, totally fine and god-damn cheerful. He still smells like rancid milk though, so I manage to bribe him into the bathtub with a jolly rancher, where I soap him down twice, just to be safe.

I got him out and dried off just in time for R to wake up and Dad to get home with some childrens Pepto. Too little, too late Dad.