The Piks: Post-Puke Park Play

Friday, April 18, 2008

Post-Puke Park Play

Somewhere in a suburb of Houston tonight there is a woman describing to her husband the most horrible mother she ever met. The mother watched her son puke up his guts, then told him not to breathe on the other kids, and sent him on his way to play. Yeah, that was me. Sounds pretty bad if I describe it that way. Here's what really happened. When Coleman woke up from his nap, he complained of a sore throat. I asked if he wanted to stay home, or go to the park like I had promised we would do if he took a good rest. He wanted to go to the park. When we got there he acted a little funny, and before we made it across the field to the playground, he stopped and threw up the entire contents of his tummy. Spence had already run over and began playing, and in a minute the other mom came over to see if I needed anything. We started talking, and I explained that Coleman didn't feel warm, so maybe it was something he ate. He had some chocolate milk at ChicFilA, and I didn't even think of looking at the date on it. Hopefully that was the culprit. She added that her kids had had that reaction after drinking some bad milk before too. Coleman insisted that he wanted to go play, and we had driven about 10 minutes to get to this park, so I hated to pull two screaming kids back to the car and try to stuff them in against their will. Especially one that might decide to puke on me. I told him not to get near the other kids and just play with Spence. He jumped and climbed and slid and swung, all with a funny grimace on his face, but never puked again. The other mom and I had a good time chatting, and I don't think she was anxious about her kids catching some bug from my little puker. He was keeping his distance. She even let me hold her 14 month old while she went and got a plastic bag from her car for Coleman to use as a barf bag on the way home if needed. How sweet! The barf bag was not needed, but Coleman did throw up once again at home.