Not for Those With Weak Constitutions

Or how my family is usually introduced to strangers!  Oh snap!


Yet sadly true...

Actually, this posting is really is about a topic that might cause those with weak constitutions to have an attack of the "vapors."  To put it delicately, I'm talking about boof and poop.  When it comes to vomit and other bodily excrement, my husband and I have become rather cavalier in our attitude.  In one month we have probably cleaned up more of the aforementioned than most people clean in a year. A disturbing yet proud accomplishment.  Boof and poop are such an integral part of our lives that we have the clean up down to a science.  For example, a couple of weeks back I rode in a charity bicycle event with a couple of friends.  After the event there was a cookout for participants and their families.  My husband and the R.A. joined us.  We were talking with one of my friends when the R.A. commenced with one of his "pre" boof coughs.  Alerted,  my husband and I quickly moved into our vomit defense stances.  First we swiftly navigated the R.A. away from my friends' plates and cups.  We might live a chaotic life but it hasn't dampened our sense of good manners.  While my husband positioned the R.A. in such a way as to limit the amount of throw up on his (the R.A.'s) clothes, I grabbed a handful of napkins from the buffet tent.  Once we were certain the R.A. had completed his act of reverse peristalsis, we used a nearby bottle of water to wet the R.A. down and clean him up.  Fortunately I had brought an extra t-shirt and we slapped that on the R.A.  Mind you, this whole endeavor took less than ten minutes, during which time my husband and I never ceased conversing with my friend.  She would keep saying things like, "Uh, we can talk later" or "It looks like you're pretty busy now" and we blithely reassured her that we had things under control.  Come to think of it, she did look pretty horrified by the entire thing which is pretty remarkable considering she is legally blind... If I was someone who wasted time with introspection I would investigate this.  But nope, I am not.


So moving along...

Anyway, my husband and I have become extremely skilled when it comes to these matters.   I like to think of us as an elite tactical Boof Removal Unit.

The past few nights this week the R.A. has been battling his environmental allergies.  Unfortunately for him, the environment is winning and we've had a couple of incidents of allergy barfing.  An incident earlier this week made a causality out of his Thomas the Tank Engine bed linens condemning this intergalactic war monger to sleeping on Disney Princess sheets.  

This morning the R.A. was up at 1:27 AM due to coughing which then caused him to boof all over himself.   Without a word to each other, my husband and I popped out of bed and went into action.  As this vomit event woke the R.A. up, in addition to throwing up he was also yowling in rage at being woken up.  My husband snatched him from his room and placed him in the bathroom, moving rapidly to decrease the amount of throw up trailage.  Although the R.A. was determined to climb into the tub to continue barfing, we managed to keep him confined to a little rug.  When we were confident the spewage had finished, we peeled his clothes off and put him in the tub.  There the R.A. continued to rage.  At this point his anger was increased  because he was rubbing vomit into his own eyes and by the Kitchen God he did not like it!  The R.A. was also further infuriated by my attempts to keep him from rubbing the boof into his eyes.  Greco Roman Baby Wrestling is fun on most days but throw in some throw up and it's triple the delight.  While I wrangled/showered the R.A. down, my husband went on vomit recon. in the R.A.'s room.  For someone so small who doesn't appear to consume much food, the R.A. vomits like a 7 foot,  4 inch, 345 lb. hung over longshoreman.  Let me just say that sometimes his room looks like something out of "The Exorcist" and we'll leave it at that (you're welcome, America!)  At 1:40 AM I pulled the still "gently" caterwauling R.A. from the shower.  Now he was annoyed with me because he was enjoying the shower and I was killing his good time.

Following these late night/early morning impromptu vomit/bathing episodes, the R.A. refuses to go back to his room, instead insisting on coming into our room.  Perhaps in Little Capernicus' mind if he's up, we're all up.  Fortunately the R.A. was quite refreshed after his "nap" and bracing shower and proceeded to yowl loudly and jump up and down in our bed from 1:40 AM to about 4:30 AM after which my husband tussled the R.A. back into his own room and lay down with him so I could try and get some sleep.  As the morning was still young, the R.A. then proceeded to jump up and down and yowl in his own room so loudly I couldn't sleep.  He finally exhausted himself at 6 AM and fell asleep until 9:30 AM.  Yes, part of me did want to go in and jump up and down on his bed and yowl loudly.  Lucky for him I was too tired to attempt such a thing.

Of course I had a program at work this morning.  I was bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to tackle the day.  Not.  I was bleary eyed, droopy tailed and yes, I was ready to tackle the day and then wrestle it to the ground, punch it repeatedly, kick it senseless and give it a bone crushing throttle.  Due to my lack of sleep I was a fun cocktail of exhaustion and crabbiness.

Today's program was an homage to the ancient Olympics and the kids' teams represented original Greek city-states - Athens, Sparta, Corinth, and Argos.  I was so punchy that I kept mixing up the teams, causing the kids to declare indignantly, "I play for Argos!" or "I'm an Athenian!"  At one point I snapped at a kid, "Listen, it doesn't matter.  Eventually Greece is going to end up having one of the weakest economies in the E.U. and practically on the verge of a financial collapse!"  I know, rough talk.  I told you I was crabby.

I believe the Kitchen God said it best in his sermon on the Eiffel Tower: 


Blessed are the sleep deprived for they shall be easy to conquer.  And we shall know them by their extreme under-eye bags and mismatched footwear.