Spew City - By Calm Blue Ocean
Before I start, I probably should put a warning here – that if you don’t like reading about spew, you should stop reading now.
Firstly, I’d like to say that in general, my darling hubby is a smart man. He’s a self-employed sparky, is good at maths and fixing broken things, knows lots of stuff about lots of stuff, and is a great person to have on your table at a quiz night.
However – as seems to be the case with most men (I have discovered, through speaking with friends & reading He Did What? Wednesdays), he quite often is lacking in the common sense department. And he most definitely would’ve failed if there was a subject at school called “How to be helpful in urgent situations.”
Case in point:
Recently, my darling daughter went through a stage where she would wolf down her tea, then scull a bottle of milk & then shortly after projectile vomit it all back up again as a result of being a little piggy.
So one night, she had done the scoffing thing & was playing happily when all of a sudden she stood up, walked over to me (why is it ALWAYS me???), grizzled for a split second & then proceeded to shower me with partly digested dinner & curdled milk. In the split second that she grizzled my Mummy brain had been alerted to the fact that she was probably about to chuck and, as is the natural reaction, I cupped my hands in front of her mouth.
So there I was, sitting on the lounge, holding a cupful of spew in my hands while the rest trickled down my legs and onto the carpet. I look up, wondering why my darling husband wasn’t coming to my aid and find him still sitting on the couch, where he had watched the event unfold, looking at me with his eyebrows raised as if to say “well that was a surprise!”. Yes, that’s right, just sitting there. Looking at me. Holding baby spew in my cupped hands. Doing NOTHING.
At this point I believe I screeched “Get me a GODDAMN TOWEL!!!!!” – which seemed to startle him into motion, but not a quick motion, as the situation called for, No Siree, he proceeded to move at fricking snails pace to the linen closet where he took an eternity to find the pile of spew towels that I place front & centre in the linen closet so they are always handy(yes, we have a specific pile of spew towels in our household, such is the frequency that we clean up spew) and then dawdle back to the lounge room.
By this stage I am on the verge of going postal at his lackadaisical manner, whilst trying not to inhale the foul stench radiating from the contents of my hands when he strolls over to me, and drapes the towel OVER my cupped hands. OVER my cupped hands.
At this point, I’d like you to take your hands, cup them in front of you, and pretend you’re holding a pool of vomit in them. Now consider just how helpful it would be to have someone drape a towel OVER the top of your hands. That’s right people, a towel draped OVER the spew is completely FUCKING USELESS!!!
I slowly raised my glare up to meet his eyes, and given the fury emanating from them, I am quite surprised he did not spontaneously combust at the instant our eyes met. Thankfully, after another eternity, he realised that perhaps his actions weren’t well thought through and lifted the towel off of my hands and held it underneath so that I could tip the offending contents onto it.
Why thank you darling, I will present you with your medal later. Or not.
So tell me, is your hubby a super-hero when it comes to dealing with vomit, or does he sit there like a shocked spectator waiting to see what’s going to happen next?
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The lovely Fi is the Calm Blue Blogger behind Calm Blue Ocean. She's a 30-something year old girl with 2 beautiful children & a hard-working, self-employed husband.
She confesses to eating badly, yelling a lot, caring too much and swearing like a two dollar hooker. She's a total control freak and makes awesome cakes.
She's also smokin' hawt and if it wasn't for a button that had feet in it, she'd be plastered all over my sidebar.
Next Week: Get Lost in Translation with Glen's Life
Send your S/He Did What!? submission to Glowless@wheresmyglow.com
Joel's actually pretty awesome with the vomit/poo/wee/etc in our household. Moves faster than I do. It's just socks he can never find. His socks. The boys sock. Any freaking socks.
ReplyDeleteWas drinking coffee. Should have heeded your warning.
Classic, love it. Ever since my #1 Hubby witnessed (apologies for the following...) Mstr2 spew directly into my mouth when he was about 4 months old (I was holding him above my head, he had killer aim, it wasn't much, bit it will scar us all for life), he has had the world's worst gag reflex. He watched a cat cough up a fur ball at someone else's house - he was heaving. He watches any of our kids say they feel sick and start to heave, and he's heaving right along side them. If I really want to get him, I simply pretend to heave, and he's off screaching like a little girly man, heaving away himself in between screaching at me to stop and running away from me.
ReplyDeleteOMG! that was so funny (the post, not you getting spewed on!). Hahahaa Pal is moving at snail's pace CONSTANTLY. We don't really have spewers here anymore - only the odd power vomit of doom. But generally Pal gags a fair bit, yells at me to hurry up and help HIM even though I am the one cleaning up the regurgitation and he has only been left with a child to redress/change nappy/get out of my way.
ReplyDeleteI shouldn't have laughed, but i did. I've been there, where you think "Why are the not helping?" and then when you scream at them to bloody help i usually get something along the lines of "You don't need to yell. You could ask nicely." I shouldn't have to freaking ask.
ReplyDeleteYou should have chucked the vomit in his face. At least it would have made you feel better. And maybe next time he would move faster?
I can so imagine the scene and the "what part of this do you think is helpful?" look.
ReplyDeleteYes, Mr Fussy once yelled at me when I spontaneously threw up in my handbag, in the car, while moving. Like I planned to do it? As soon as I was better I bought myself a very expensive new handbag.
We are not designed for those moments - our job is simply to set the video, after that it all gets a bit messy!
ReplyDeleteNot being a spew prone family, I have to admit I was gobsmacked at the "specific pile of spew towels".
ReplyDeleteMy Dad was a sympathetic vomiter. It was the one thing he simply couldn't do in our home growing up.
ReplyDeleteMy youngest was a reflux baby, so his first 2 years were spent with us going literally nowehere without 3-5 changes of clothes and several vomit rags/wraps.
Mine doesn't sit there in shock, he sits and laughs or just ignores until I yell. Inevitably I have the non spewer/pooer/wee-er climbing all over me while I try to keep the mess contained, kids out of it, and reach the nearest cloth.
ReplyDeleteWhen he does manage to stop laughing long enough to help it's at a snails pace.
Aahh, what are mummy's for if not to be spewed on!
This reminds me so much of my husband,
ReplyDeleteI must say my husband is a helpful sort when it comes to stuff like this. My brother is a wimp when it comes to stuff like this!
ReplyDeleteGiven that "baby spew" is already mentioned in the blog header,the Spew Sensitive Types have already been aptly warned about the contents of this website. LOL :) Love how motherhood can give you so much writing material. How many times must you think, I could seriously write a whole sit-com about my life, and maybe win a Bronze Logie?
ReplyDeleteFi *is* lovely. :-) Colin
ReplyDeleteI bloody KNEW you would comment on this one!!!!
ReplyDeleteHmm. Now why would you say that, I wonder.
ReplyDeleteThankfully my husband is spewtacular, everytime I spew he holds my hair and cleans up the mess, actually puts his hands in and cleans it up, something I would feel very differently about if the situation were reversed.
ReplyDeleteWhat he isn't good at is understanding when I say I am not in fact suffering from food poisoning but am actually in incredible pain. So the day after I spent an hour or two in the foetal position and told him I had never felt so much pain in my life, followed by vomiting and then passing out he was still insisting it must have been something I ate. It wasn't until our friend the doctor worked out it was probably a burst ovarian cyst did he concede otherwise and then asked me why I didn't let him know I was in so much pain. Apparently "I have never been in this much pain in my life" doesn't quite cut it, I'm supposed to scream and thrash around too.