Vomit Radar

I'm not sure at what point after having children we mothers develop the vomit radar. I used to gag uncontrollably at the sight, smell or even sound of someone yacking up a partially digested meal. Once you have kids though, something in your DNA that had been dormant for years suddenly throws up (pardon the pun) a shield making you immune to vomit. Baby vomit is something new mothers become accustomed to straight away. Non procreating women and men have a panic attack when small newborn babies suddenly start erupting. Mom looks over to see baby Jane gushing a fountain of sour smelling, yellowish, half curdled formula, and squeegees and wipes the infant—never getting a drop on her perfectly manicured nails. Hell, I used to change clothes every time I got barfed on until I surrendered, and would parade around all day with puddles of dried vomit on my shirt. By the end of the day, I looked like I'd been massacred by milky white paint balls.

When kids mature, vomit takes on a whole new dimension. Kids don't develop their radar until age eight or nine, which translated means they never hit the toilet—ever. They will hit everything on the way to the toilet, and then dry heave over the bowl having left a vomit trail all the way to the porcelain bowl. I have devised many foolish attempts to keep the vomit in one area so that I don't have to rent the Rug Dr. after every bout of stomach flu that hits our home. Laying a towel by the bed seems like a bright idea until you have used every clean towel in the linen closet, and are faced with hosing off the chunks on the patio before they can even go into the washer. I tried to load the washing machine with chunky towels once, but it took eleven rinse cycles to get the unidentifiable food particles off the inside walls of the drum. My latest and greatest idea has been the vomit bucket. Vomit radar picked up a blip a couple of nights ago and I went into military mode. Once you've cleaned up vomit six hundred times, you want to avoid number six hundred and one.

My daughter whipped the covers back on the bed. DEFCON four...what's wrong? I feel it coming, she says. DEFCON three...get up! She stands up and freezes. DEFCON two...grab the bucket! She grabs, she hits her target. DEFCON one....get to the toilet! She manages to make it without one chunk hitting the floor! The process would be repeated several more times that evening. As my daughter faded off to sleep, she says to me, aren't you glad that I hit the bucket mommy? I smile to myself triumphantly and tell her, yes. Then my radar returns to DEFCON five, and all is peaceful once again.