Vomit

I made a mistake in my last blog. I mentioned that Joseph hasn't really been a sick child. When he was on milk he threw up a handful of times and his stomach has been well behaved since weaning.
Fate, it appears, does not like to be tempted and today... well I guess most other mums out there will be giving me an ironic smile right now, you're probably used to scraping piles of sick off the floor on a semi-regular basis. I'm not.
Joseph was sick today, very sick.
He was fine in the morning, he played about like he usually does. I let him have some fun in the garden and whilst he was running round and round on the lawn, I took a few minutes to tidy up in the kitchen and get a load in the dishwasher. When I popped my head round the door I saw him trying to eat a small piece of broken flower pot. This may have been what did the damage, or it might just be a bug going round.
Either way, he was ill. He ate his lunch like normal and had his afternoon nap as normal and woke up at about 2.45pm whimpering. I'd been having a doze downstairs and this is when I woke up. I headed upstairs and concluded that he couldn't have been crying for very long as he hadn't scattered soft toys all over the room, which is his standard response to being in his cot when he'd rather be out.
I picked him up, he still whimpered. A moment later it was my turn to cry out as Joseph let out what sounded like an almighty belch and my arm, part of my leg, some of our bed and a large patch of carpet became lost in a shower of projectile vomit. He'd had chicken sandwiches, cherry tomatoes and a fromage frais for his lunch. You could tell.
I gently sat him back down in his cot and tried to take stock and work out what to do next. Joseph would be safe in the cot, even if he was now quite unhappy. I could go and clean myself off, grab some cleaning stuff and go to work on the carpet.
Joseph had other ideas. He belched again, a damp and ominous noise that was the harbinger of an even bigger shower of sick covered himself and the cot. There were pieces of tomato in that as well.
Now what? I couldn't pick him up, he was so covered in sick! I couldn't leave the room, as soon as I did he started screaming and that was just asking for trouble. Stuck between a rock and a sicky place, I called for backup.
Granny came over, armed with a pile of old towels, something that is utterly invaluable when it comes to sicky children. They sick up on the towels and not the soft furnishings, much easier to clean.
Granny got the cuddles. Poor little Joseph, he was quite ashen faced. He had huge grey rings under his eyes and his lips were a pale white. We gave him a little cold water and the poor mite couldn't even keep that down.
Joseph was happy to cuddle Granny. I slunk back upstairs and set to the grim task of picking vomit off the carpet and cleaning it with washing up liquid and a special enzyme cleaner that actually for cleaning up cat mess, but it works on baby mess too. I cleaned myself, collected up all the grotty bedding including moving our full sized mattress to get the dirty valance sheet out. I gathered up all the ickyness in the cot together in its fitted sheet and then said a silent prayer of thanks that we hadn't been able to afford the proper sprung fabric mattress and had gone for the foam filled plastic covered one. Much easier to clean.
I changed sheets, scrubbed some more and did more washing than I care to think about. Joseph just got cuddles.
I think I've got it all out. The room doesn't smell any more and I don't think I do. By late afternoon Joseph had picked up enough to take some calpol (magic!) and some cool boiled water and a little dry toast. He hiccuped and then belched, causing me to start forward and lay him down on his side with an old towel ready to catch the explosion, but it was unnecessary. He was still under the weather, but there was no more sick.
He's gone to bed now, hopefully he will sleep. Hopefully there will be no more sick because it really is nasty. I really do feel for any mum who has this sort of thing on a regular basis, it must be quite tempting to get everything including yourself teflon coated to make it all easier to clean.
By the way, I've found all the pieces of the broken flower pot in the garden and got rid of them. I'm not taking any more risks.