The Cough/Puke Maneuver Act II

I’m curled up on the sofa with a book about post-partum depression that an online friend of mine wrote. I’m reading about how she got covered in puke every night when her baby had reflux when I hear coughing in the bedroom.

I perk my ears up to see if I can tell who it is, although I’m sure it’s Satchel, and whether one or both of them is “up”. The coughing turns to crying and I hear, “Mommy! Mooommmy!”

I jump off of the sofa and run into the bedroom to find Satchel sitting up. “Mommy, I puked,” he sobs.

I assess the damage. The puke seems to be covering his arm, his shirt, and most of a pillow. “It’s okay, honey,” I say as I grab a towel.

He hasn’t done the cough/puke maneuver in over a week so I am somewhat surprised. He starts coughing and pukes again, and I am really surprised. “Oh, honey!” I exclaim and pick him up off the bed and put him in front of the potty a few feet away.

More coughing. “If you need to puke again, do it in the potty,” I say. And then he does. Twice. This seems to be much more than just the asthma cough/puke maneuver. I look at the contents of his vomit (I know!) and wonder if eating at the Dixie Queen was a good idea.

Meanwhile, Jiro wakes up and crawls around the bed a little. Thankfully, he collapses back into sleep in an area of the bed not covered in puke. Thank god, Satchel didn’t actually puke on him.

“Mommy, I need to drink some water,” Satchel says. I retrieve his sippy cup from the bedroom and hand it to him. Once he has a few sips I get to business. I take off his shirt, get him a new one, and then throw everything pukey in the wash. When I come back in the bathroom, Satchel is sitting on his step stool with his sippy cup in his hand.

“I ate too much sugar,” he said in a sweet little voice.

“You did, huh?” I laugh. “Are you okay?”

“Uh-huh. I’ll be okay for school tomorrow,” he says.

“Wanna go back to bed?” I ask as I pick him up.

“I want you to rub me,” he says. And I do.

As he dozes off for the second time that evening I replay our dinner. We were all sharing. I hope Jiro doesn’t start puking next I thought as I realized I felt a little nauseous.

But being the littlest, wouldn’t Jiro have puked first if it was food poisoning? Maybe I just feel queasy because I have Satchel’s puke on me.

Once Satchel was asleep I decided to call my sister just to make sure she and her kids are okay.

“You found the movie,” she says as she answers the phone.

“Nope,” I laugh. “Still gone. I only had to pay $9.95 though.”

“That’s good. What’s up?” she asks, curious, since I hardly ever call anyone after 8pm.

“Y’all feel okay?”

“Yeah, we’re fine, why?”

“Well Satchel just puked four times and it didn’t seem like asthma, so I was worried it might be food poisoning,” I explained.

“No, everyone’s fine.”

“I was thinking about the goldfish he ate off of the floor when we were there,” I confessed. “God knows what was on the floor.”

“You know how sometimes puking once makes you want to puke again? Maybe that’s all it is,” she offered.

“Sounds reasonable,” I said. “At least that’s what I’ll tell myself when I get in bed. It’s times like these that make cosleeping kinda sketchy.”

“No kidding!” she laughed and we hung up.

The night passed with no further puking and everyone seemed fine when we woke up.

In the car on the way to school Satchel said, “You said we were going to eat some vegetables when we got home last night!”

“You’re right,” I said. I started watching Survivor and forgot all about it. “We’ll have to eat double vegetables tonight!” I said.

“Yay!” he said.

I swear!