The Puke Story. or Why I'm never going to be ready to be a mom

When we built our new (and by new I now mean it's over ten years old) house all my friends thought it was the bomb because the stairway is built so that you can walk down from the platform into either the kitchen or the living room with my mom's bedroom facing the platform.
Holy crap, a stairway with options! These people are SO modern!

Such architectural genius was slow making its way into Huron County.

Really, my mom is just that: a mom. The way the stairs are built force the nary late-returning child to walk directly in front of her bedroom. And did I mention my mother sleeps as soundly as a colicky newborn? It was preventative mothering because essentially if you broke curfew, she knew it.
You knew she knew it, and she knew you knew she knew you knew it. You know?

And you were hosed.

Being the perfect child that I am, this was never a problem. (Suppress giggle here.) because I, too, am plagued by lightsleepitus. The smallest things will wake me up; honestly, sometimes it feels like I never actually fall asleep at all.

Which would bother some people to no avail, but I'm used to it. What really sucks is at camp that makes me numero uno in the go-to category if something is wrong in the middle of the night and everyone else is too difficult to wake up.

This last session I had a cabin of my own, shared by another lady. Actually we ourselves shared a cabin and our girls were in two others surrounding the area. It wasn't so bad, for some reason kids seem to take a great liking to me, which I have no idea why. Perhaps it has something to do with the language barrier because even when I don't understand I shake my head and acknowledge I'm listening. I've gotten really good at pretending I'm listening while I'm desperately trying to form sentences into logical communication in my head. Or maybe everyone in the world is really good at it and I've just figured it out. Can't decide.

Other times a little knock comes at your door at three in the morning and you wake up to a child shaking and sputtering and you're at a loss for everything.

Let's face it, at three in the morning I don't think that anyone is at their best cognitively, and toss in a second language and we're bound for a journey.

"Ich hab'gebrochen." Small German lesson for you all. That translates into a few things. Or in the very least it's a tricky sentence if you're not paying attention...Which I wasn't after just being jolted awake halfway through the night thinking, "Jesus, a thief!" Yeah, right, Rebecca, a very polite thief is just knocking at your door after trying to what, steal your sleeping bag?

Anyways.

"Ich" = I . "hab"' = have. and "gebrochen" can = broken.

So my first thought, after realizing there wasn't a thief at my door was, "How are you broken? You don't look broken?"

And then I inhaled.

I can still remember being little and padding into my mom's room late in the night, feeling very ashamed, trying hard not to wake her but still knowing I needed to tell her that I had just thrown up.

It's small child protocol. She needed to wake up and put the sheet over the couch and bring the puke bucket (every household has one.) out into the living room so I could go back to sleep. But I was always so ashamed.

The smell of vomit is so very distinct. Sour and acidic, it whips through the back of your throat instantly and presses against the pit of your stomach. Hard.

Damn it. 

"gebrochen" can also mean "to vomit." How could I have forgotten? In those milliseconds before my eyes saw the caking on her shirt, and the wetness on her shorts, I had smelled it and my brain made the connection before any sort of logical linguistic could.

We took her back to her cabin and I had her change her clothes and leave them in the shower while I assessed the damage.

War zone.

She was sleeping on the top bunk, and had leaned over the back edge over shoes, backpacks, sleeping bags, clothes.

Not even her roommate below her was spared.

An hour of cleaning, I'll spare you the details, but know it consisted of a full mattress change, and finally she got back into bed. The poor thing, myself and the camp supervisor were the only ones who could manage the smell. Honestly, I wasn't even the girl's counselor, but hers walked into the room, put her hand over her mouth and whispered to me, "Ican'tdothisI'msorry."
Because no matter how much you love someone, you will always step back when a puddle of their vomit creeps too close. And let's face it, I had only known this girl for a few days.

But I nodded and continued to mop up what I could with my own bath towel. I think part of being a grown up means dealing with puke. That's it, guys, I've made it!

So that was the beginning of my second camp experience. Me thinking, "Holy carp, my mom is a saint. All moms are saints." mixed with a bit of, "Ha, that'll teach them, I'm never having kids!" and a reflection on how you always throw up at night? Is there something your stomach has against sleeping soundly?


Scumbag stomach.

The rest of the week spiraled into me getting my first tick bite. Whoohoo!
Two girls trying to break out of their cabin to sleep with the boys. Whoo. hoo.
And, here's the kicker. Seriously, I almost pee'd myself laughing at this one: I got voted most attractive counselor by the campers in their unofficial poll.

I think I can die having lived a complete and fulfilling life. Without any more puke, please.