Matthew threw up last night. It’s a bad sign. I had stomach ookiness for a few days last week (still kind of have stomach strangeness…which is one step up from stomach ookiness for those of you not up on the terminology), so it appears that the stomach ookiness could, in fact, be a contagious kind. Although, with Matthew it’s hard to tell. He takes after me in the stomach ookiness realm – he’s prone to it. He’s proving to be a pukey child just like I was. He almost always vomits at some point during a cold since he still doesn’t blow his nose to get all the nastiness out.

Unfortunately, the vomiting last night was one of those very unfortunate vomir experiences. We’d been sitting at the table attempting to get Matthew to eat something (toast) which he was refusing to do. If the kid won’t eat carbs that’s a sign in this house that something is definitely amiss. Matthew started to act a little gaggy, so I jumped and ran to the bathroom to get our “puke bucket.” (Yes, we call it that). Hearing Mike’s cry of alarm alerted me to the fact that I wasn’t going to make it in time. It was too late. Vomit. All over. Dining table, Matthew, Mike, floor. Every where. What amazes me the most about Matthew is that he has completely mastered the vomit skill, unlike me; he’s hardly fazed by it. I’ve spent a lifetime as a pukey soul and still struggle with it. Well, who really enjoys throwing up, but still, some are better than others. Matthew is one of the good ones. And last night’s vomiting took the cake. Mid-gasp – I mean he wasn’t even completely done – Matthew pants out, “Mommy, I love you, but I’m yucky.” Mid-puke! So, what do I say? What any parent would say: “Matthew, I love you too, even when you’re yucky.”

I’m happy to report that the vomiting does force things like a deep cleaning of the carpet on and around the incident and a total table wipe-down. Sadly, it may take a throw-up incident for me to finally getting around to washing the windows. Every window in the living room and dining room area currently acts as our growth chart. – we interrupt this fascinating BLOG with an important update: at the very moment that I was typing, I looked over to see Matthew commence at throwing up his oatmeal breakfast all over himself, the sofa and Nick. Well, there’s another area of our home that has now received a thorough cleaning. Thank you. Some people measure their kids and draw the little pencil line on the wall or the back of the pantry door, not us; not here. In our house, all we have to do to see how the boys have grown is look at the windows. The hand prints gradually have gotten bigger and the face smears are a little taller – smooshed lip-impressions higher up on the glass.

It might be time to do something about this situation. This morning while I typed this (pre-couch vomiting episode), I looked out the living room window and thought, Hmm, it’s raining and really foggy out there now. Weird. Just a second ago I looked out the dining room and saw nothing but blue skies. Yes, that’s when I realized I was looking through the window at the boys’ exact look-out spot, and my view was clouded and hazy, filtered through oodles of face and hand prints.

Nine times out of ten, passersby on our street can look up at our front window and see two little heads pop up – one brown and one blond – above the sofa and smile and wave, faces pressed to the glass. My philosophy: why bother wiping away the face smooshes of their youth when A.) they’ll just do it again and leave new smears and B.) before I know it they’ll be too old for leaving face smooshes on my windows. I should savor them while they last, right?