Mommy Handicap

I have realized that parenting is a learn-as-you-go endeavor. In fact, it's perhaps one of the very few things that I know to be true of parenting. I sometimes joke that because Molly has had such an easy time with some of the typically rough first-year issues (such as sleeping and breastfeeding) that I have a handicap when it comes to parenting. [It should be noted that I am in no way complaining about this, just commenting upon it.] It completely throws me off if she wakes up in the middle of the night, for instance, because she has always slept so well at night.

That's why, since she's never been sick (aside from the occasional cough and runny nose), it threw me for such a loop when I went to wake Molly up for daycare this morning and found her covered in vomit. Let me just demonstrate the many ways that this was alarming:

• Molly vomited, for the first time. She didn't even spit up much as a baby, let alone vomit.
• She had slept in her vomit. I heard Molly fussing around 10 last night, but after 30 seconds or so she went right back to sleep. She does this almost every night, so I had no reason to assume vomit was involved. I will now, however, never be able to stop assuming she's vomiting.
• My child has a lot of hair. My child with a lot of hair slept in her vomit. That's as far into the details I'll go, but it was not pretty.
• A fact I did not know/had not expected: one-year-old vomit smells exactly like all other vomit. I knew what it was as soon as I walked into her dark room.

Initially I handled it really well I think. Because she had no fever and was acting quite normal (though she's always a little sluggish in the morning, so it was hard to tell if it was normal sluggishness or sick sluggishness), I assumed that the evening's event was an anomaly. I decided to keep her home until after breakfast and see how she did. I was hoping she'd be fine because we had an impromptu trip to Tampa (and the Ikea there) planned for this evening and tomorrow, and I knew that if she wasn't well enough for daycare, she wasn't well enough for a trip. [Cue feelings of guilt for selfishness.] So we went about the morning as normal, including her morning milk (which is a fairly new thing in and of itself as we only quit nursing in the morning last weekend).

Yeah, this is where my handicap kicked in. Molly proceeded to throw up her milk for the next two hours (including once in her carseat, in the Target parking lot - where we had gone to get Pedialyte because we didn't have any on hand - another handicap, while it was raining, before we went inside), during which time I talked to the nurse at her pediatrician's and was (very politely) informed that it was a huge no-no to give a child who was vomiting dairy. Doh! That seems like such common-sense parenting knowledge, but I had never even considered it.

After Molly seemed to be finished with her milk (so to speak), had successfully kept down the little bit of Pedialyte I'd allowed her, and had spent quite a bit of time cuddling with me and watching cartoons, she fell asleep for a two-hour morning nap (though she hasn't taken a morning nap in months). When she woke up she was in much better spirits. I know she may still get worse (if this is, in fact, a virus), but I feel like starting with so many hiccups made me get a bit of a grip on sick-kid parenting, for the moment anyway.

There's so much about parenting that you just can't know how to handle until you get there, and I know this is a fairly tame example of it. But I am constantly reminded that parenthood is a humbling experience, reminding me over and over again that I don't - and can't - know everything about it. Instead I focus on knowing Molly and, by knowing her very well, being able to handle what comes in the way that is best for her, even if I do have to figure it out as I go.

Molly's sick-day set-up, complete with comfy chair, books, and cartoons.