So, the reason we got up so early this morning was that Zoë threw up all over me and herself and the bed. But did I mention the part where I gasped and swatted at Andrew until he was awake enough to turn on the bedside lamp for me?
"What's wrong?" he slurred. "Did the baby spit up?"
"Yes," I sighed.
"Do you have a burp cloth?"
"No," I said. "I never have a burp cloth. She doesn't spit up, like ever."
"Huh," he grunted, turning over to go back to sleep. "You should get one then."
Although we have a long-standing pact that nothing he says before he showers counts (because he is a slow waker-upper (and approximately 9 years, 10 months, and 2 weeks ago he called me stupid one morning while I was waking him up (as in "Go away, stupid!"))) I'll admit to feeling a little angry about this response. My excuse will be that my cumulative "forced awakenings" the past few months/years have caused an overall "reduction in positive mood," as well as decreased "feelings of sympathy and friendliness."*
I left the baby screaming beside him and, grumbling a bit (and with baby vomit dripping down my front), made my way to Benjamin's room to grab a wad of burp cloths. I tried to mop up the mess on the bed but it was really messy and Zoë was screaming uncontrollably, so I went out to the living room, closing the bedroom door not-so-softly behind me. Because maturity.
Zoë continued to scream. And then Benjamin woke up, wondering what all the fuss was about and whether it was breakfast time and why the sun wasn't up and so forth.
Andrew also wandered out of his (our) bedroom. He dazedly spun around in the living room a couple of times, trying to figure out the very same things Benjamin was trying to figure out.
"Oh, go back to bed," I snapped. "You're not helping any."
I put Zoë down on the floor to scream some more while I took Benjamin potty and escorted him back to his bed. By this time Andrew had figured out enough to pick up the baby, but I took her from him and sent him on his way. Because I kind of don't trust him with the children in the middle of the night. He just doesn't spring into action unless I yell magical words like, "BLEEDING! HOSPITAL! NOW!" And even then his reflexes were a bit sketchy.
Anyway, Zoë had kind of a poopy day. Literally. But it was mostly puke-free...until dinner.
I fed Zoë right before dinner and was just strapping her into her high chair when she vomited. The nice thing about a 100% breastfed baby vomiting is that it's not quite as unappetizing to watch them throw up during a meal because chances are it won't remotely resemble what everyone else is eating. Still, I had to clean that mess up before the meal could continue. There was throw up on her tray, on the table, on the bench, on the floor, etc. It was lovely.
So I started talking about how she threw up like that this morning and Andrew's like, "She did?" And I was like, "Yeah, she did." And he said, "Where?" And I said, "All over the bed and all over me."
"Is that why you washed the sheets this morning? I noticed they were gone when I got out of the shower and I was thinking that was pretty ambitious."
"Yeah. They were nasty and you were sleeping right beside a big puddle. So gross."
"Huh. I didn't even notice. I was a little afraid to get out of the shower. I kept feeling like you were mad at me about something. Like, did you yell at me about something?"
"Yes. I said, 'Oh, go back to bed! You're not helping any!' because you were spinning around in the living room not doing anything while I was dealing with Zoë and Benjamin at like five o'clock in the morning."
"Hmmm..." he shrugged. "I don't really remember any of that. Except you were mad."
"I was ticked!"
"As you should be. Sorry I was a misogynistic jerk in my sleep."
"We all have our faults," I said.
"What does misogynistic mean?" Rachel asked.
"It means, technically, that you hate women," Andrew said.
"But you don't hate Mommy!" Benjamin gasped. "Mommy is a woman!"
"I don't hate Mommy," Andrew assured him.
Oh, and then I brought up this article about sleep (that I referenced above) and so we started talking about sleep instead and Rachel said, "Have you ever closed your eyes at night?"
And then she stopped talking. We waited for her to finish her sentence for a long time, but she never did (sometimes she forgets to finish speaking) so I said, "Rachel, you're doing sleep wrong."
"No! I mean, have you ever closed your eyes at night and then woken up and it was hours later but it felt like just a minute?"
It was pretty funny. And then Miriam mentioned that sometimes she wakes up hungry in the middle of the night and Benjamin said, "Me, too! I wake up hungry in the middle of the night all day long!"
We had FHE before dinner tonight (due to DST the kids didn't play outside much before dinner so they were all inside waiting around for dinner to be ready so we had FHE and then had dinner, which felt a little backwards) so after dinner we just got ready for bed.
Zoë threw up again after all the kids were in bed and I was rocking her and nursing and even though I'd explained that she needed to take little sips and not gorge herself...she commenced gulping and gorging. I tried to stop her. There was lots of screaming. And in the end I figured, "Maybe spitting/throwing up twice in one day was a fluke," so I just let her eat until she was content. And she was. For about three minutes she was in a blissful milk-coma. And then she gagged. And it was all over.
It was all over me, it was all over her, it was all over my chair.
"Help, help!" I squawked. "And don't you dare tell me to get my own burp cloth!"
"Hey! That doesn't count!" Andrew said, dashing off for burp cloths. "I wasn't really awake!"
When he is awake, he's really quite nice. He came back and took the dripping baby from my lap and said, "Wow, so do you want to take a shower?"
Much better than the half-asleep response, amirite?
So I took a shower with Zoë and we felt much better. After I'd tried every other method of getting her to sleep (the swing, walking laps around the house, etc) we cleaned the puddles of regurgitated milk from my rocking chair and I sat down to feed her again, but this time I succeeded in tricking her into accepting a pacifier mid-feed, so her tummy didn't end up quite so full.
Hopefully she'll keep that down for a bit (and stay asleep for a bit).
Further evidence of Andrew's...sleepiness:
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