This falls into the category of: what they don’t tell you in parenting class.

It’s 12:34AM.  The first cry from Cassidy’s room is alarming, mostly because it’s different than the usual midnight call for a drink of water or sore legs.  My wife is already leaving the bed (how does she get up so fast without falling on her face in the darkened room?)  The second cry is much louder and more distressed than the first.  Clearly the little one is out of bed.  (This is alarming because Cass never gets out of bed.  She could have grown a second set of arms and legs during the night but would patiently wait for one of us to actually enter her room so as to witness, first hand, her new found appendages.) So, like I said, she was out of bed.  Then it hits me: She’s throwing up!

 Before I get much further you should know that there is a long standing rule passed down from parent to child in our family for countless generations.  I am sure on some boat on the way over from Holland a great, great, great relative told the great, great relative something like this:  If you are going to throw up, stay in bed and call for me.  What ever you do, don’t get out of bed!  Keeping with tradition, I have passed this maxim on to my offspring.  In theory, this should work.  The now free stomach contents are relatively contained to the bedding, which can be washed (or burned) as appropriate.  The carpet, walls, tile, walls, toilet, walls, cabinets, and walls, remain vomit free.  Did I mention the walls?  It’s foolproof. 

Here’s the problem: if you’ve never really thrown up the entire contents of your stomach with the force of a volcano, you probably don’t know what it feels like.  If you don’t know it’s coming, you’ll probably be a little freaked out by the strange feeling brewing in your gut.  When you are four, and your guts are in turmoil, you go looking for help.  You don’t stay in bed. 

By the time my wife got to my daughter and scooped her up in her arms, wave two of Mt. St. Helen’s erupted from Cassidy’s stomach all over Sharon.  Wave three proceeded to follow wave two, and found its resting place all over the bathroom.  In an attempt to dodge the disaster that was the bathroom, I entered the poor little kid’s bed room and found my own disaster.  Did I mention that she is four? And little?  How can one little kid puke this much?  It’s not right.  Why didn’t she stay in bed?  Oh yeah, I covered that a while ago.  

In an attempt to make a long story short, the wash machine was running by 12:50 and the rug scrubber was running by 1:00AM.  Cassidy was in the tub asking how we were going to get everything cleaned up and generally feeling rather bad about the turn of events (bless her heart).  Cassidy was back in bed by 1:30, I found myself horrizontal a few minutes later and Sharon managed to return to her pillow by 2AM, freshly showered. 

Sharon discussed the staying in bed thing with Cassidy again.  I think she understands now.  By some miracle, she awoke this morning and said she felt fine.   My eyes feel like sand paper and the coffee isn’t working.  It’s stories like this that make me understand why I titled our blog From Chaos to Calm.  Granted, this happened in the reverse, but this just seems like the way it goes.  Like flipping a switch.