Runaway Ralph (HOL 24)

House of Laughter 24

This weekend started off pleasantly. We had dinner at my favorite restaurant, Natty Greene’s, on Friday. I worked for Habitat Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon, I made a pillow for Isaac. When I was a child, my favorite toy was a small pillow my mother had made for me out of a Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck hand towel. My friend Little Matt mailed me two “Star Wars” washcloths from 1977 that he found while cleaning his mother’s house a few weeks ago. As best as he recalls, they had never actually been used, but had sat in the same spot under the sink since the day they were put there almost thirty years ago.

It was a lovely Saturday afternoon….until the vomiting began. It’s like any bad thing. The first time you panic, and try to clean everything up as carefully as possible. By the fifth time….eh whatever….the dog got most of it up. We called our friends the Sawalskis to get their opinion on whether or not to panic, and their baby had been sick for three days.

I stayed home with Isaac Sunday morning and afternoon since Nancy had nursery duty at church and tickets to see “Tap Dogs” with her friends.

Monday was normal until about 4:30. I started to feel sick. I left work and spent the next 12 hours evacuating the digestive tract by any available opening. I even threw up food that I hadn’t eaten yet. I called in sick to work that night.

Do you know how sometimes if you call in sick to work, you try to make yourself sound sicker than you are? Sure you feel bad, but you want to make sure that whoever gets that message knows you are sick. There was no such chicanery with my late night call to the boss’s voice mail. I sounded like Diane Rehm.

I was sicker than I had been in years. I couldn’t pick up Isaac. I couldn’t even watch T.V. As soon as I sat down, the first commercial I saw was for the Fillet o’ Fish sandwich at McDonalds. Shortly after that, Nancy started cooking chili.

I spent most of the night on the bathroom floor. Nancy brought Isaac in to the room about 7:30 in the morning to tell me that he was still sick as well, and couldn’t go to daycare.

Isaac and I spent pretty much all day in bed. We napped for most of the time. I read him ghost stories, and we played with his stuffed octopus. I still felt pretty crummy, but he was in a laid back mood, so we got along until about 2:45, when I got brave and decided to try and feed him. How did that go you may ask? Not so good.

I gave him a tiny sliver of bread, and I was greeted with a fountain of partially digested formula. I still felt nauseous, and he started crying, and there was a mess everywhere. I called Nancy and told her to get home. 3:00 was her normal time to leave, but she is doing a “Book Fair”, and could always find something to do after work. As I sat there holding my crying, hungry child, and feeling nauseous myself, I understood why some people just lose it. I was so grateful to see Nancy. She took the boy and I slept for a few more hours.

Unfortunately, with Isaac and I being sick, we aren’t going to get to see Isaac’s new friend, Alex, who was born today to Javier and Celena Velez. Happy Birthday.

Strength and Honor

Big Matt