10/19/2005

Barf-O-Rama

I took my kids to a nice local park today and there were all sorts of park goodies: tire swings, regular swings, poles of all kinds, slides, bridges, etc. There was even a praying mantis on the overhead bar of one of the slides. My daughter spotted it and said, "The largest bug of your life is on this slide!" My youngest boy was amazed and stood there looking at it. I went over to touch it and study it and my oldest (who is ridiculously afraid of any bug---particularly mantises---he can hardly stomach looking at the one in his science book) yelped out that we were crazy to be so close to it. Finally I just picked up the thing with a toy gun and plopped it on some wood close to the trees. My daughter then felt free to resume slide playing.

Things got a little risky when I pushed my boys on the tire swing. They wanted to spin and spin and my oldest boy was nuts over it. My other boy was having a tough time. He was loving it but soon hated it because he kept saying that he was going to "barf." He eventually just sat on a bench looking white as a sheet until we had to leave. On the way home I wanted to go to the store to get some steaks since according to the weather forecast this will be one of the last of the warmer days before it really gets frigid. I want to grill. So, we stop over at the store and I am looking at steaks and my younger boy says, "Mom, I really feel like I am going to barf." He then puts his hand over his mouth and then I put my hand out to catch it all and of course it cascades all over my hands. Thankfully we were next to the restroom (Thank you God!) and I ran over there with my sick child and cleaned him up and proceeded to clean up the floor too. The pharmacy lady was like, "Ma'am, you don't need to clean that floor! We have mops to do that, you know!" She was talking to me in a patronizing way. It was annoying. I told her that I would prefer to clean up my own child's puke and she can feel free to mop it after that if she wants.

Then in the car my oldest asked if it were at all possible to "chuck down". I think he meant "down chuck".

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

We are barf free in our household at the moment which is not exactly a brag, just our status. However, we have a claim to fame that probably will remain unequaled in the days and weeks to come. As he was dismantling an old chimney in the 105 year old house that we are planning on turning into our office, my husband, Paul, found a very interesting mummified cat. Coincidentally, Halloween is coming soo. I told our teenagers that when little kids come to the door that we should give them candy and offer to show them our cat mummy. Ryan said that we should charge money. I think it would be more fun to just entertain the kids!

msw

R said...

That is crazy! I think seeing that would make me a little queasy...

Anonymous said...

I forgot to say that we do have a notable barf story in the family historical canons. We were going out to eat at a restaurant called King Oscar's on 66th Street in Richfield, Minnesota. Being a truly Nowegian kind of place it had orange plastic chairs, the waitresses were all over 50, and served lutefish at Christmas etc. However, on the occasion being mentioned, we only made it as far as the airlock entry and Ryan barfed all over the rugs, making it unusually fragrant for any other diners for the rest of the day. We had to leave immediately, of course. Not being as conscientious as you, we went straight home. I think you are amazing!

msw