Today my baby puked in my mouth
Isn’t life grand? As a mother of two adorable mini humans, I spend my days marvelling at their growth and development, and delighting in watching them blossom into brand new, shinier versions of me and my husband. I love caring for my girls, a rambunctious 2 year old and adorable 4 month old cat-napper. Some days however are so crazy that I follow the mantra of laughing instead of falling down on the floor, beating my fists and screaming louder than my terrific toddler can! Today has been one of those days.
It did start well - both bundles of joy slept-in past 6am and bub had no mid-night poos – saving me the pleasure of exactly 45 minutes of chattering and wiggling, followed by another 30 of grunting before returning to the land of Nod. By that point I’m wide awake and cursing my crash-prone white noise app (a ploy to make you upgrade from the lite version I’m sure).
So, the morning appeared to start well and with a spring in my step I made my way to the bathroom. She won’t poo in the next 2 minutes I assured myself as I extracted my mouth guard and went to the loo. On my return, a familiar fruity smell wafted from the direction of my little one, happily wiggling on the bed. ‘Oh no’ I groaned, and lifted my smelly bundle of joy off the mattress.
Sure enough, the brown circle of doom revealed itself, slowly seeping through the layers of clothes and sheets, inching its murky way towards the mattress. Thank the Lord it had stopped in the innermost layer of her brand new sleeping bag. The mattress was spared. A week of rain and mountains of washing had us down to our last set of sheets and with a broken dryer I was seriously considering the benefits of using the hairdryer on the latest load of washing.
Anyway, toddler, baby and bleary-eyed husband up, it was time to launch into the breakfast routine. I slammed the kettle into its holster, flicked the switch and managed to make milk and coffee for toddler and adults before meltdown number one had a chance of brewing. It had been quite a week, our heavy block-out curtains and metal rod had collapsed on top of my child's play area (thankfully while she was in bed), our dishwasher remained malfunctioning despite multiple visits from our friendly Russian repairman (renting sucks), and the skinny neighbourhood stray we had been feeding turned out to be a much-loved neighbour's cat that had hoodwinked us and the family upstairs into feeding and fretting over her. We were under strict instructions to spray her with water if she visited and under no circumstances to feed her. Shaking the last of the grain-free cat biscuits into her bowl I reminded my husband to pick up some more cat food after work. All cats should be fat, and this one has visible ribs.
So the day progressed... We had a play date at a friend's house and managed to get the baby to nap her cursory 20 mins on mummy's lap on the floor of our friend's daughter's room. All was going nicely, with Mummy delighted at the chance to check her emails and book an appointment at the doctors for a suspected UTI (no time to drink water let alone urinate more than once or twice during daylight hours). Just as I settled in on the shag-pile rug, phone in hand for a bit of an internet surf, who pops around the corner but smiling big sister! “Hi Mummy!” she sprays, little shards of crackers leaving a trail behind her. Baby’s eyes pop open and blink. OK, nap is now over. Time to go home for lunch.
After wrangling the toddler down the 15 stone stairs and convincing her to stand still next to the car while putting Bub in her car seat we are off! (I'm sure there must be a safer way of buckling two kids in the car when you don't have a stroller to trap one in because your friend lives up a flight of stairs?) Once safely home bub wants to nap again. Ok, do I risk her getting overtired and feed myself and the toddler first? Or do I strap the toddler in the high chair and try to put the baby to sleep? I choose the latter option. All my forward planning and risk analysis goes to the dogs however when baby micro-naps for 3 minutes and toddler starts screaming for the iPad. Grab baby and whip up my lunch, convince toddler to take two bites of her peanut butter sandwich, and eat one bite of my sandwich. Baby poos again.
Ok, quick, get toddler in cot with milk, grab white noise machine and open app so it has a chance to warm up before freezing again, and change nappy all in time before baby's micro-sleep wears off. Done! Feeling like I'm nearing the finish line (big sister’s nap time) I change baby's nappy. Lifting sweet pea from her change table I smile, lips parting in a wide grin and AARGH! Baby projectile vomits a stream of my sweet, warm breast-milk right into my open mouth. I have never been so surprised and disgusted in all my life. Wiping my mouth and spitting said breast milk vomit into the nappy bin, I sit down to hold my baby for her next catnap and munch on my sandwich. How did life get this frantic but also so downright fabulous?
