Slashing Would Have Been Smarter

Quiz time!

Let's say you have to work on the opposite side of town from usual, so your husband is in charge of picking up the kids. And let's say that just as you're about to leave that opposite side of town situation, your husband texts you to say the toddler just puked. Do you:

A) Take a knife to your tire and text your husband that you'll be late while you wait for someone to fix it.

B) "Accidentally" program the wrong address into your GPS and drive out of state.

C) Call the dentist and make an emergency appointment for a root canal. RIGHT THAT MINUTE.

D) Assume the whole thing was a fluke and carry on as usual.

Survey says ... the correct answer is A, B, or C. It is most definitely not D and it's not any other choices because OF COURSE YOU STAY AWAY AS LONG AS POSSIBLE. There are consequences to being the parent who rarely does pick-up and those consequences are that it should suck. All of the suck. Sucking helps to make certain that the parent who usually does pick-up is appreciated, right?

Right.

So if were to enter into this hypothetical situation, maybe last Friday even, I'd probably go with "none of the above." I'm that special kind of crazy that purposely drives home just like normal and plunges herself straight into a bad situation.

I knew it would be bad. I went home anyway.

Yes, I want a cookie. But not the cookie that Mila puked on me within 2 minutes of me walking in the door. I'd like to never see that particular cookie ever again, thank you very much.

Or the one after that.

Or the next one, either.

That's to say, Mila had that thing that seemingly everyone has had lately. It's 12 hours of sick followed by 24 hours of tired followed by TOTALLYFINECLIMBTHEWALLSZOOOOOM. She wasn't fine Friday night, but she is now and most of what fell between was a blur.

Except, there was something pretty spectacular that happened. Mila generally only has two moods - she's either really happy or really angry. She has a super effective RBF, but still. Happy. Mad. Those are her states of being. It turns out that her stomach churning makes her OMG SO ANGRY. When she's angry, she yells. It took us about three tries to figure out a routine, but with a little practice, Mila and I figured out how to deal with her getting sick.

She would get angry that she was about to throw up again and yell. I would grab her and quickly run to the bathroom. She'd puke in the toilet. Lather, rinse, repeat.

There was a point in my life when I thought kids learning to deal with their own sick was the best milestone possible. Now I've decided that kids telling you about their sick is pretty spectacular as well.

Oh, and I decided I should keep a knife in my car. You just never know when you might need to slash your own tires.