Sniffles

The kids have the sniffles ergo Mommy has the sniffles. Everyone knows children are famous for having runny noses...it's part of their design. But you never really understand this joy until you are the one their noses are running onto.

This morning Rhu was sitting with me while we screened the baby show. Then I realized I felt something warm and wet on my arm...a mere three inches from her nose. I looked down and saw that my forearm had been the latest victim of the nasal assault the kids had been staging all week. Just a few short years ago this would have caused me to run to the nearest sink and scrub my arm as if I had just been a casualty of biological warfare. Now, i use the same snotty tissue I just wiped the kids' noses with to mop up the mucus and move on. That's really all you can do in that situation.

Parenting is a lot of wipe it up and move on. Things that would cause my single friends to stop dead in their tracks hardly phases a weary sleep deprived parent. They are the things that cement your place in the world of Parenthood. I've heard of woman who say they instinctively put their hands out to catch a child's vomit. This always seemed a bit much to me, but I can tell you now I understand it. My hands often serve as the receptacle for expelled bodily fluids and slobbered toys the kids are no longer gnawing to death.

I mention all this because it reminds me of a time when I was a new mom and I not only endured but excelled in a situation filled with more baby projectiles than I had ever thought possible.

Not long after my eldest child was born, my husband's family commemorated his grandfather's passing with a ceremony and luncheon. Being proud and responsible parents we dressed our child in an adorable outfit, packed up the car and set out on the journey. The ceremony at a military graveyard went off without so much as a peep from the little one. I even managed to enjoy lunch between trips to the car to nurse the hungriest baby in the world.

As the luncheon came to a close and we prepared to make the trip back home which included a stop at our accountant, I changed the baby's diaper only to find an exceptional present. A feeling of pride swelled inside as I managed to side step that landmine and get the diaper changed without making a mess.

After the family good byes I noticed the baby was cranky and the trip was hardly underway. It was about five minutes into the trip she vomited the exceptional amount of milk she had been consuming all day. Wanting to be perfect safety conscious parents, we immediately pulled over to change the baby out of her clothes into the fresh outfit every new mother puts in her diaper bag.

It seemed like the disaster was over and we were free to continue our journey home. Oh how little we knew of how bad it would get. Before we made it to the accountant's home, the baby managed to vomit everything she ever ate in her life, cover me and my new outfit in my own half digested breast milk and cry the most heart wrenching tears a baby could make.

By the time we made it to the accountant, the baby and I were in the back seat clinging to each other like Haitian refugees on a boat in the Atlantic as my husband went to collect our taxes and perhaps his sanity. Forget new outfits and handy wipes, we were in full out fluid onslaught. I didn't think a person that size could produce so much projectiles, but I swear to everything I hold holy it is possible. The back seat of our SUV looked like a war zone.

After what seemed like an eternity, we somehow managed to make it home that night. As we pulled into our driveway, I looked at our angel who managed to pass out and I knew I made it. I was a part of the club of mothers. Not the cheesy one every thinks of, but the club of mothers who can and will do anything for their kids without thought or complaint. The ones who will endure long stretches of sleepless nights and a closet full of stained shirts. It may not always be pretty, but it is always worth it.

So I guess in thinking about it, what's a little mucus between mother and daughter?