OMG

So, I'm sitting in my bed, minding my own sick business, coughing up a storm and blowing my nose every two seconds while watching The Three Faces of Eve on my laptop. I'm getting rather annoyed because my kids are supposed to be in bed going to sleep and they're not. Bob's out shopping because we ran out of pull ups and the last thing I want to do when I'm feeling this way is pop in and out of bed because someone can't sleep, or needs their cup filled, or needs another bottle or a song or a book or is bored or whatever other excuses might strike their fancy.

"Mommy, I pooped!" Finally an excuse I can embrace. Especially since Lorelei hasn't pooped for 2 days and is showing signs of constipation. Except that she didn't poop. She changed it to "I peed and have a tummy ache" as I walked in the room. Rather than deal with multiple attempts to poop and in the end giving her a suppository anyway I decided to get it out of the way. As I'm putting her diaper back on, I hear Liam in his room, climb out of his bed, onto his changing table, turn on his light and start fussing. "Stay here." I tell Lorelei. "I'm going to put Liam back to bed and then I'll come back." "Ok, Mommy" she replies.

I make Liam another bottle and go into his room, get him situated and tucked in and turn off his light. As I close his door I hear the sounds of massive retching. "Mommy, I puked!" Ug.

Why does Lorelei always have to puke on the nights she eats hot dogs? And why did she have to wait until her formula was in her tummy just long enough to get curdled? "Stay right there." I command. "I have to call Daddy." Normally when the kids puke, I clean the kid, he cleans the room. I leave a voice mail. "Lorelei has projectile vomited massive amounts of puke. I need you to come home now." On my way back to her room, I hear her puke again and then a third time as I walk in.

We have these things called 'Barf Buckets'. They're little white trash cans bought for the sole purpose of puking in them. Each kids has one, somewhere within arms reach of their beds in the hopes that cleaning up puke will be an easy, painless process. Lorelei has decided that, not only is the barf bucket not necessary, the more amusing goal is to see if she can get puke everywhere EXCEPT the barf bucket.

I start a bath, undress her and put her in and start working on her room. Strip her bed and changing pad, wipe down her dresser, move the dresser and wipe down the wall, wipe down her mattress, take the mattress off the bed, wipe down the bed frame, move the bed and wipe down the rest of the wall and floor. "Mommy, I have to poop!"

So I put her on the potty and wipe down the bathroom, just for the fun of it, while I'm waiting for the deed to be done. That finished, I plop her back in the bath and go back to her room to wipe down her nightstand and the toys and books that 'just happened' to be on the floor instead of on the shelf where they belong.

In the meantime, Liam has gotten back out of bed and is trying to get out of his room by knocking a hole through his door. Molly thinks it's funny to stand in her doorway and laugh every time she sees his little hand poke out from under the door. He starts clawing at the floor and crying like he's in solitary confinement in the big house. Rather than deal with listening to him as well, I send Molly in to his room to entertain him. I guess she thought I meant 'let him roam the halls and come into the puke room to see what bits of puked up hot dog he can eat.' Somewhere in the midst of this Bob comes home - not because he got my message (since his phone battery died) but because he finished shopping.

I'm almost done cleaning up the now dried puke splatters off the last of Lorelei's floor when she gets out of the tub and announces she's done. Since I haven't actually washed the puke out of her hair yet, I order her back in and try to finish cleaning her room. "Mommy, I pooped in the bathtub!" WTF!!

Not only did she poop in the bathtub, but I guess she tried to make it to the potty as well because there was rather watery poop on the floor and somehow on the shower curtain, rather reminiscent of the way a hippo poops underwater. So I wipe the floor, drain the tub, wipe the tub, refill the tub, wash Lorelei and finally get her back into her room, where Bob has finished cleaning, straightening and putting sheets back on her bed.

We get Lorelei tucked in, Liam tucked in, the older girls back in their rooms and Bob heads downstairs to start laundry. I head back to bed to blog.