Baby Stomach Flu In Three Acts

Act One: (The family is sleeping on the living room floor.  After four rounds of vomiting, the baby is sleeping on a pile of towels.  It's some time around 3 am.)

Carol:  Hey...  get up... 
Me:  Wha?  Huh?  Is he throwing up again?
Carol:  No.  But you should get up and go to bed.
Me:  Wha?  Why?
Carol:  You might as well.  Go sleep on the comfortable mattress.  Get a good night's sleep.
Me:  Wha?  Um.  But I *was* getting a good night's sleep until you woke me up.
Carol:  Oh.  Right.  Um.  Can I go to bed then?  Cuz you're snoring and I could really use the rest.

End of Act One.

Act Two:  (song sung to the baby during bathtime after a violent blowout.  The baby's been having diarrhea about every two hours for two days now.  It's about 7 pm.  Oh, it's sung to the tune of "I Think I Love You" by the Partridge Family.)

       I think I love you,
       But stop splashing your shit-water on me,
       Because I don't want to get hepatitis B,
       Or pinkeye, like we saw in that movie.

End of Act Two.

Act Three: (Some time about 4 weeks from now.  In the living room.  It'll probably be about 7:30.)

Carol:  What's that smell?
Me: I dunno.  I got a whiff of it earlier, but couldn't place it.
Carol:  It's worse close to the couch...   Oh dear god...  What the hell is that?  How the hell did we forget that in there?  Get a bag! Get a bag! Quick!

Curtains.

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Boeuf Bourguignon Please. The Floor's Fine.

My mum thinks we should pay her for babysitting.

I countered with the fact that she should pay us for housekeeping, since the kid eats every single thing on her goddamn floor and leaves that house spotless.

I don't get it. It'll literally be minutes after he's eaten, and he'll find something on the floor and shove it in his mouth. He'll spit out the meal I've cooked for him, or throw it off the tray, but god forbid there be a bit of old cookie on the floor. Or paper. Or a dust bunny.

He's taken to doing something new, which is eating *phantom* items off the floor. He'll crawl. Stop. Sit up. Look like he's picking at something. And put it in his mouth. And there's nothing there. But as a parent it still totally freaks you out.

Wolf!

I don't know how to stop it. I thought maybe if I crammed him full of food, he wouldn't be as interested. But that only ended up getting me a kid that makes other people say, "He's only *how* old?"

I remember that to train a dog from chasing cars you're supposed to make it an unpleasant experience. Drive by slow and when the dog starts chasing the car, hose him down with water guns and blast air horns at him.

How can I make eating crap off the floor unpleasant? Scatter the floor with little bits of Roquefort and capers? I know that would make me quit in a hurry.

But it'd be awful if he ended up liking those too. Great. A kid who'll only eat French cuisine off the floor.

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Why Doesn't He Just Turn Them Inside Out?

Men are often given flack for those four or five disintegrating pairs of underwear they keep in the back of the drawer. The reason for their existence is sometimes chalked up to sentimental issues, but I think it's more of a learned survival behavior.

When you've reached the lean end of a laundry cycle, a pair of raggedy underwear is better than no underwear at all. A pair of raggedy underwear is better than underwear which has seen any sort of action.

I have a friend who takes this one step further and believes that wearing no underwear is better than underwear which has seen any sort of action. So, if he were to stay over somewhere unprepared, in the morning he would get up, take a shower, fold up his underwear, stick it in his pocket and go commando. The first reaction is to consider him a weirdo, but there's a small part of me that totally understands what he's doing.

Anyways, raggedy underwear serve as the safety buffer of the underwear drawer.

In our kitchen we have one of those big Henckel's knife blocks with the five million knives sticking out of it. When I got up this morning, the knife block was absolutely vacated. Even the fillet knife had made its way out and was in the sink. I don't remember catching a fish. Closer inspection shows margarine and toast crumbs.

Apparently, the fillet knife is the raggedy underwear of the knife block.

Apparently, it's time to do the dishes.

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Take My Advice...

I always wanted to be some type of consumer reviewer. I thought I'd be good at it. Buy things and then complain about them. I do that all the time and I don't even get paid for it.

I tried the "secret shopper" gig for a little while, but it wasn't quite what I was looking for. There wasn't enough space for creative, freeform complaining. It was all very regimented. How long did it take for the burger? Did they ask if you wanted fries?

Plus the fee was so low, it's essentially a job which pays you in burgers and Cinnabons. It brings up images of me standing on a corner holding a sign that says, "Will Werk For Fud". And I swore I'd left those days behind.

I wonder if wanting to be a reviewer has something to do with wanting your opinion to matter. Or thinking you know what's best for other people.

Maybe career reviewers are like that one uncle everyone has who gives unsolicited advice. On everything. All the time.

I don't want to be that guy. So I'll reserve all my judgements and keep my opinions to myself.

Except this one.

Vista sucks donkey balls.