The Waiting Game(s)

I had the rather odd privilege of watching (not literally I hasten to add) a fellow twitterer going through labour yesterday. With enough detail to bring the odd Vietnam flashback (but with more gore than your average US independent observer suffered) and some photos of the end result (baby I mean), it was a really vicarious experience.

But reading the tweets about contractions and time passing made me think of our own situation. As wifey has just blogged, M’laddo was sick, exorcist sick at that, on Friday night. I’d just pulled my newly rediscovered Lowe Alpine fleece on for the brisk 2 mile walk home when the phone rang and wifey had the tones of someone who’s just experienced something fairly unpleasant. “Toddlerboy has just been sick everywhere.”
I’m the VomDoctor in our house, I’ll never forget M’laddo’s first bout of winter vomiting virus- he’d puked in his bed and was busy chundering all over me in the middle of the night. I stripped him off and took him in the shower with me and Wifey hosed us down. I had to remove the chunks of sick that had become wedged between my buttock cheeks ((even marriage vows only carry so much conviction in this sort of situation). Afterwards when we were both clean and dressed, M’laddo drank rather too much water and began to bring it up. I called for something to catch it with and in a panic got passed two girly sized tissues. I caught the second wave of sick (mostly water thankfully) in my PJ’s which I’d pulled out like an apron to spare our bottom sheet and duvet.
Back to the now though, or at least last Friday. It’s times like this the 2 mile walk home from work becomes a pain rather than a benefit but by the time I got home things seemed rather normal, save the rather damp pushchair and M’laddo on the sofa under his duvet looking a bit forlorn.
We steadied ourselves for a nightime of vomiting and also begun the long wait for the 3 of us to come down with it. In our experience, winter vomiting is a bit like the Three Musketeers, one for all and all for one and all that. Well, its now Sunday night and the remaining members of the household are still vomit free. M’laddo had a spectacular night time sick bout last night after a day of seeming perfectly fine and running around the D’Havilland Museum, so he’s still not well. But the metaphorical Sick Bowl of Damocles is still nestling beside our bed and our own special waiting game is still unresolved…
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