The other night, while Melissa was out of town for work, Emma came in our room at 1am and woke me up saying, “Daddy I puked in my bed.”
Well, I made sure that we changed her pajamas and cleaned her face etc. and got her comfy in my bed. I got the blankets off her bed and got a big bowl in our room just in case she has more-the stomach flu going around is pretty nasty. It wasn’t long and she said she was going to be sick again. I brought her in the bathroom but she didn’t want to go by the toilet. She stood by the sink a while then I had her sit on my lap while I rubbed her back. She got sick again and I stood by giving her encouragement to get the bad stuff out while rubbing her back.
When she was finished we got situated in my bed and turned the TV on and watched cartoons and kids shows. A cool thing was that an old show she used to watch when she was 2, Johnnie and the Sprites, was on at 2am.
She eventually threw up 5 times in total during the next few hours. This stay at home dad was pushed to my queasy limits as she was really emptying out into that bowl! Just thinking about it makes me queasy now as the smell…..ugh.
Anyway, she took the whole thing like a champ. She didn’t cry which surprised me considering the powerful heaves she was having as well as trying to catch her breath. It was not a good feeling for me to be so helpless while my daughter was sick. What an awful feeling. I was wishing that it was me and not her each time she threw up. She drank some Sprite and we talked a lot about how she was really puking- she likes saying this word instead of throwing up- a lot. I played on the iPad until she finally fell asleep at 5 am. I was wired and fell asleep at 7am after calling her in sick from school.
The next day we took it easy. She woke up at 10am and didn’t eat anything but a piece of toast the whole day. Se drank some sprite and refused the Gatorade I gave her. She was afraid of throwing up more although she didn’t anymore. Se took it easy which is a rarity. She satay end on the couch and watched TV and played wii with me.
Emma was definitely a trooper through this ordeal and in the days afterward had lots of stories to tell about how she puked everything out and that it was good to get all the bad stuff out. Se also told Melissa about how she thought the beefaroni she ate was the cause because she saw it in the bowl when she puked…lol. As for me, this stay at home dad prefers not to really think about it.