Just when I run out of things to write about, someone barfs on me. Jackpot!

Last night, I went to bed in the 9’s, just like any other night. I go to bed in the 9’s because waking up in the 5’s is fuelled less by a suicidal jaunt into the corner of the dresser if I’ve had a few good, solid hours of sleep.

I should mention that while my kids, family, friends, riding bikes, long walks on the beach, fabulous bottle of wine, Maria Von Trapp are all tied up with strings in my bag of favourite things, I think I can safely say sleep has held the number one place on that list for at least eight years running. Perhaps there was a three-way-tie the year I discovered bulk chocolate covered almonds and when I figured out how to add the refill bags into the Diaper Genie.

So when my sleep is interrupted by anything; a car alarm, a telephone call about basketball registration, a wounded turtle knocking at the door looking for a ride to the trauma centre, I cringe, but when I hear the warning hurl, my heart leaps through my chest (think Bugs Bunny and the rabbit from the dog races when they kiss) and I start running toward Lassie who then leads me to the child in danger.

Last night it was Chloe. Ah yes, I should have guessed. Fall has arrived, the smell of lice and stomach flu  are in the air and have taken over the schools. My baby has done far too much licking of the grocery cart handles and not enough licking of the Listerine bottles afterward.

Here is how a 2 year old is different in a stomach flu situation than an adult.

1)      Like an adult, at the onset of a hurling episode, she squirms away from me in a desperate attempt to flail her body into any position that might seem comfortable with the hopes the sick feeling will pass. The difference is, when she gets seconds away from carrying out the act, she clings to my face, staring me in the eyes, with my nose in her mouth in a desperate attempt to pass the unwelcome bug onto me.

2)      She yells, “Bucket!” (which actually sounds like “packet”) when she realizes there’s no escaping this next round but makes no attempt to throw up into the bucket. I think she thinks of the bucket as a new toy that Mommy fetched from a secret cupboard in the play room and she doesn’t want to soil it with bile. In fact, I think she yells bucket as a warning to get the new toy away from the vicinity she plans to shoot her projectiles.

So now I’ve snorted another person’s vomit, I’m watching “In The Night Garden” at 3:30am with a towel-turned-rag as a blanket and a baby whose skin when it touches mine creates a red burn mark on my lower calf.

I hear the water in the coffee pot start to drip, suddenly it’s 5:45am.

Just pour it over me.

The girls wake up and sneak down the hall into the kitchen giving me time to wipe down the leather (thank you leather!) with a vinegar/warm water solution before anyone sits on last night’s leftovers.

Through my very squinty eyes, I thought I saw Hanna and she was talking to me but I couldn’t concentrate long enough on her words to realize she wasn’t asking about her baby sister or how we made it through the night or that I was her hero, she was telling me today was crazy hair day and she needed a kazoo made from an empty toilet paper roll, wax paper and an elastic for music class.

Am I dreaming?

There I was, hands shaved of any moisture I had been stock-piling for the winter months, ripping toilet paper off a nearly full roll to make a freakin’ kazoo!?

Ellie wanted the equivalent of a Chelsea bun at the side of her head for crazy hair day. Hanna wanted two braids on each side connected at the back. Something that said, “I’m crazy but in actuality, it kind of looks better than my normal way of wearing it down.”Like in an interview when they ask you your worst quality and you say, “I work too hard.”

I sipped a cup of tea-sludge and got cracking on the kazoo only to be told, “It doesn’t BUZZ!” In that moment, I could hear my Dad’s voice screaming, “You want it to buzz? I’ll give you buzz!” but I knew that response would be counter-intuitive.

Here’s hoping this is the 24 hour kind of bug or this Mommy will be admitted into the kazoo house for observation.