The Terrible, Awful, Dreadful Thing...

When I was growing up, I loved Beverly Cleary's Ramona book series. Ramona was my favorite child heroine, and I would read those books over and over until I had sections committed to memory. In fact, I still do. I can remember one particular book titled "Ramona Quimby, Age 8" in which Ramona suffers the humiliation of throwing up in school. If I recall correctly, it went like this: "The terrible, awful, dreadful thing happened. Ramona threw up. She threw up right there in front of everyone." I could totally relate to this being the end-all-be-all of horrible situations. I was always terrified of throwing up (still am, actually). When I found out I was pregnant, I dreaded the morning sickness (which never turned out to be anything more than nausea, thank goodness!) When it came time for labor, the pain didn't scare me nearly as much as knowing that many women puke during the transition phase (it ended up I did!) My sister has a 13 year no-puking streak going, if that gives any indication of my family's relationship to stomach purging.

I must admit, for the past year and a half I've worried about the first time Anthony gets sick. When he had the flu earlier this year, I was eternally grateful it never involved puking. I always figured we'd know when it was coming based on his behavior and eating patterns. Though he's been eating like a little chickadee the past 3 days, he chowed down at dinner last night and was his usual bouncy, happy self when he went to bed.

Imagine my surprise at 3:30am this morning when Adam got up to check on him after we heard cries over the monitor and delivered this news: the terrible, awful, dreadful thing had happened. Anthony threw up.

I think Adam and I both handled it quite well, and Anthony seemed pretty unbothered by it actually. We stripped the bed, changed his clothes, and after a few minutes put him back to bed. An hour later, we heard him gagging again, but that time very little seemed to be expelled, and he went back to sleep for a couple of hours. He got up at his usual 7:00am and downed a cup of milk, 2 cups of pedalyte, and a bowl of oatmeal with no adverse affects. He's taking a nap now, being obviously exhausted from being up in the middle of the night, but I haven't heard any unpleasant sounds rising from the monitor, so I'll assume he's ok and the dreadful, horrible, terrible thing won't happen again...!

In other news, a truly terrible, awful, dreadful thing that's not just my melodramatics... Hurricane Ike is plowing through the lower Caribbean with hints that it might come to visit us later in the week! I'm not too worried because Tampa does seem to have an uncanny ability to repel these storms... but we'll stay tuned.

Grand Opening Monday!! 25 people RSVPed! Excited and anxious and hoping no sickness or storms affect this event that I've worked all summer to make fabulous!!