On the up-side, Jacob had some fun little firsts yesterday. Twice, he got fussy but wouldn't fall asleep while nursing (which is the norm here), and after 20 minutes or so of fussing and face-rubbing, I put him in his crib, turned on this little "kick-n-play" piano, and wandered out, mostly to give myself a few minutes out of whine range. And both times, I'd tiptoe back in a few minutes later to find him sound asleep! YAY!! And he slept for an hour each time, YAY YAY YAY!!!

In between that, he had his first self-driven drink from a sippy cup and his first taste of a Ritz cracker. I had him in his high chair, and he was watching very intently while my 4-year-old DD and I were eating crackers, so I put one on his tray, made a fist, and PLUNKED it into smithereens... as much for the amusement of my daughter as for his own cracker-related safety. He spent a good 45 minutes chasing little cracker crumbs around his tray, and when he'd catch one he would either eat it or shove it up his nose (saving them for later?). I also put a little water in a sippy cup, and after batting that around the tray for a while he figured out which end had the spout and how to tip it up, pretty cute. Shocked him every time he got water - he'd stop and flail for a few seconds, but then try again, and would be shocked and flail-ful again the next time he got some. Goofy boy.

So, that was the fun part of my day. The not-fun part started after bedtime. During the week, my husband works from 7-3 some days, and from 7-8pm on other days, so while I'm at home I stay up later with Jacob (he now goes down around 9-10 but he was staying up till midnight). Fridays and Saturdays, I go to bed early. I headed in around 10, and was just crawling into bed all shivery and excited about my down comforter sinec it was -10 overnight, when I heard an odd sound. Sort of a whimper, high-pitched, coming from across the hall. "Was that one of the kids?" I asked my cat. She didn't know. Then, again, "Mmph," from across the hall.

I got up, went into my daughter's room, just in time to witness the erupting. She threw up all over her bed, all over herself, all over her room... it was truly, truly, truly horrifying and disgusting and awful. I yell for my husband and kind of stand there helpless for a few seconds.

Let me interrupt myself to say that I do not handle vomit well. I mean, no one LIKES it, but I really get all twitchy and nauseous and skeeved out by it. My husband is not as squeamish, so we have an agreement that I deal with the blood in our house (which doesn't bother me) and he deals with the vomit. A sort of bodily-fluid battle plan, if you will.

But last night, the sheer scope of this incident was way too much for one person to handle. So I left Willem to wade in and clean out the bedroom while I escorted Emily to the bathroom. We get in there, and the first thing I do is aim her at the toilet and say, "If you need to be sick again, try to get it in the toilet, okay?" She immediately turned around and threw up all over the bathroom, in a clear and hugely unattractive arc.

Fabulous.

So I just turned on the shower and started throwing things in there - bath mat, towels, my sweats, my socks, the foot stool, etc. Then I started to get her undressed, which is no small feat because her collarbone is still broken (backstory: she fell out of bed 2 weeks ago, twin-bed and carpeted floor, landed just wrong and snapped her collarbone in half - she's not in much pain anymore but still in a sling), so we need to carefully but at arm's length try to ease her out of her well-soaked jammies and suddenly-nasty sling.

Finally get her naked, toss her in the shower with everything else. Then rush to get a laundry bin to throw everything (except her) into, leave it in the hallway for husband to add to.

Yesterday, I had the experience of cleaning banana out of two people's hair. Let me tell you, pureed baby food banana is MUCH MUCH easier to clean and much less likely to make me retch than previously eaten banana. My daughter has very long, curly hair, so it was that much more of a challenge to get it out. BLECH BLECH BLECH.

Just not a good evening for me. By midnight, she was back in bed, as was I, but she got up twice more to throw up - at least those times we had covered her bed in towels and armed her with a garbage pail lined with plastic bags, so there wasn't the same level of excitement again last night.

Not that I would normally wish this on anyone, but please join with me in earnestly wishing that she had food poisoning and not a stomach virus. None of the rest of us needs to share in her misery.