Friday, February 10, 2006

The Dreaded Puke Germ

Also known as “hypochondriacs r us.”

This week we have contended with the dreaded puke germ. What that means is that Tuesday morning my daughter complained that she felt like she was going to puke. After a good forty-five minutes of this I finally gave her a “puke bowl.” Meanwhile, she asked for various food items such as Milk, Oreos, peanut butter sandwiches, etc.. I repeatedly told her, in all my haughty mom-ness, “If you really thought you’d puke, you wouldn’t want to eat.” She’d put the requested food item down and cough into the bowl.

As I cleared the morning dishes I heard her again coughing into the bowl and I yelled, “Quit trying to make yourself puke!” I spun around and in my pinnacle of mom-ness, mid “pu-ke!” saw my poor four-year-old in a retched state of puking. I sent her daddy out for Sprite and saltines which she and her brothers ate all day. Yes, her brothers also. I decided I’d rather reward them for not being sick then make them lie about feeling ill so they could have pop.

No more puking.

Now it is Friday. For four days my daughter has demanded she carry a puke bowl with her everywhere she goes. The puke germ going around apparently gets you for one day, goes away for a couple, and just as you think it is gone, it comes back. Really. That’s what I hear and not just from my kids. But my daughter turned it up a notch today, took a voluntary morning nap and asked for more Sprite. Hypochondria, anyone?

I shrugged and poured the soda. It was going flat anyway.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Guess what you just made me realize? In my eagerness to clear out all our extra stuff before our big move out-of-state, yesterday I gave our puke bowl to my friend Monica. That's because it really is supposed to be a pasta bowl, and as I went through the cupboard, I thought, "I never use this for pasta. I always tong the noodles onto the plates in the kitchen. Ha! One less thing to move!" In my euphoric feeling of accomplishment, it didn't occur to me that we do use that bowl -- not often, thankfully, but still --

I don't think I'll tell Monica.

-Mandy