For whom the barf tolls

" I'm sure we will pay for it tonight.  It's all part of the R.A.'s dastardly plan." 

And so I closed my last blog posting.  It only shows how well acquainted I am with the R.A's M.O.  He attacked that very night.  The attack was swift yet messy.

Saturday night, after the parade, my husband and I had plans to meet friends for dinner.  This is an extremely rare occurrence.  I think there are more frequent occurrences of solar eclipses than occurrences of us going out socially.  Due to childcare issues (read - nobody will babysit the R.A.) we usually head out at 8 PM or later.  That way the R.A. is confined to his room/cell and therefore unable to terrorize his grandmother - too much.

That night I was all dressed, primarily in "grown up" clothes and was picking up the day's wreckage from my living room while waiting for my husband to get the R.A. settled in his room.  We were literally minutes from our short yet sweet furlough.  Suddenly I heard my husband bellow my name.  I sprinted up to the second floor to find my husband running from the R.A.'s room while holding a vomit covered R.A. out and away from his body.  He zoomed into the bathroom and deposited the R.A. into the bathtub where the R.A. proceeded to spew while simultaneously smiling. 

While the R.A. was entertaining himself by continuously throwing up all over the bathtub, my husband  cleaned his room and I changed out of my finery and into more barf appropriate clothing.  Once we were satisfied that the R.A. had indeed cleared his stomach of all semi-digested food items, my husband and I peeled his (R.A.'s) vomit-tastic clothes off him and then excavated the tub.  It's a testament to just how often the R.A. hurls that neither my husband or I were wigged out in the least by the sight or amount of vomit.  Once the tub was clean and sanitized, I told my husband to clean up and head out to the dinner and that I would stay with the R.A.  We did briefly consider cleaning up the R.A., putting him back to bed and heading out to dinner, only a few minutes behind schedule (we are that used to the "Barf-ah-pah-loozah" Extravaganza that we have a very efficient clean up system going on.)  I know it sounds uncaring to leave a "sick" child but despite the numerous occasions of the R.A. throwing up it rarely means he's sick.  On paper it would appear he has a sensitive gag reflex.  My husband and I don't buy it.  The R.A. is capable of vomiting on demand thus using it as a Weapon of Mass Destruction.  We were 95% sure it was a "Vomit of Vengeance."  But then we figured our friends would just judge us harshly as bad parents so we decided one of us should stay home.  I was always lousy at "Paper, Rock, Scissors."

So my husband headed out and I bathed the R.A. who was cheerful and positively pleased with himself.   If he was capable of human speech I'm sure he would have said, "Ha! Ha!"  Sometimes I am very happy he can't speak English.

Of course the R.A.  did not barf once for the rest of the evening.  He spent the night feasting on Pringles and white grape juice and working on battle plans i.e. lining up puzzle pieces in random formation on the living room floor.  He was smiling and laughing - an absolute delight.  The little stinker.