So on Friday Golden Boy and I drove down to Santa Cruz in advance of Mongolita’s wedding. We met up with The Woman Who Shall Not Be Disparaged and The Bug at the rehearsal lunch. It was a joyous occasion. The Bug gave me a lingering look and then turned her head away, as if to say “Oh, it turns out you’re not dead after all.”
After the lunch I took Golden Boy and The Bug to Grandmother’s house while Disparaged did Mongolita’s bidding. Golden Boy and The Bug played long and hard until Disparaged showed up to take The Bug back to The Commune. The original plan was for The Bug to stay with Golden Boy and I at Grandmother’s but it seems only The Bug could guarantee Mongolita’s survival through the night. So off she went.
I put Golden Boy to bed around 8:30 and returned to the living room to chat with Grandmother. All was well until I heard a horrible shreak at 10:30. I sprinted back to Grandmother’s room, where Golden Boy and I were to sleep, and flung open the door. There, on the bed, was Golden Boy on hands and knees. A horrible long strand of gut juice was dangling from his bottom lip and whipping over a large crater of vomit which was squarely centered in Grandmother’s bed.
I flew over to the bed, grabbed the boy by his pits and lumbered toward the bathroom. We didn’t make it. At the door to the bathroom spew went bouncing off my shoulder, cascaded down my back and landed on my legs, the floor and the wall. In the bathroom I held the boy over toilet. He just shrieked; nary a drop of vomit hit the water.
Finally, the shrieking stopped. I put the boy down and looked over my clean shoulder at Grandmother who was now standing the doorway to the bathroom making all of the appropriate grandmother sounds. She cradled the boy while I stripped.
It took about twenty minutes to get everyone and everything (mostly) clean. Which was just enough time for the vomitting to begin again. Having been through this before I knew what Golden Boy would want the most was a vomit receptacle. I sat with my boy on the bed while he puked into a bowl and howled. In the lulls Golden Boy would rest his head in my lap and Grandmother would swap out the bowls. This continued in 20-40 minute intervals for two and half hours.
Grandmother called it: We had to take him to the Emergency Room. Golden Boy and I agreed. So I strapped him in and we drove off to the hospital.
To be continued … after The Bug’s birthday.
