porcelain white is my least favorite color.

Last night was one of the inevitable "firsts" that all parents dread. It was our "get to know the porcelain night" --ie, puke fest. Josiah went to bed around 8:30 with no complaints. Just as we were going to bed around midnight he got up and came to our room. We thought it was cute the way he peeked into our room and covered his eyes so he could just see through the slits of his fingers, as if we couldn't see him when he was hiding behind his hand. We thought nothing of it and Jonathan took him back to bed. 10 minutes later we heard something funny, so Jonathan went to investigate. It wasn't long before I was being beckoned. Josiah had vomited all over his bed and the floor...multiple times. He was scared, so I scooped him up and braced myself as the waves of fresh vomit hit my nose. He had it in his hair, so I knew a wipe-down wasn't going to be sufficient.

Josiah and I hopped in the bath. He was still scared of what had just happened, so I let him sit in my lap while I washed away the foul stink encompassing both of us at this point. I dried him off, put fresh pajamas on, brushed his teeth to get the nasty taste out, and gave him a cup of water. In the mean time, Jonathan pulled tough duty triaging all of Josiah's bedding and deciding what had survived and what had not. We decided such trauma merited a night in our bed (Josiah's favorite). We had just settled down when Josiah started to twitch and said something to make me whip him out of bed. I flung him forward just in time for round two to hit our floor and not our bed. I was really grateful for those cat-like reflexes. Once again, the pajamas went down, but we were able to manage with only a second wardrobe change and another mouth cleaning. I settled Josiah in bed once again while I took floor duty. I climbed back in bed and decided to keep my light on so I could watch him for a while. He wanted to go back to his room and be rocked, so I complied. Note to mothers: If they don't fall asleep, they probably aren't done. We rocked for 15 minutes or so before it happened again. At this point I was thinking, "Surely we are done now."

I took Josiah back to our bed, and we had been laying down for 30 minutes or so when he told me, "Mama, again." I whisked him to the potty, where he heaved his poor little body over the toilet. There wasn't really anything left in his stomach at this point. He was scared of the way his body compelled him into the heaves, so in between he would turn and put his head on my shoulder and cry. I just did all of the things a mommy can do to make him feel normal, secure, and comforted. This went on for a total of 8 or 9 times all night. Josiah got really good about feeling it coming on and telling me. He also got really good at hitting the potty, which I was very thankful for. Our last rendevous was somewhere around 5:20am. Since then he has acted normal.

As I was bathing him after the first incident, I made a comment to Jonathan how I wondered "if it was the cheese." Jonathan mentioned that he had eaten a string cheese as a midmorning snack. I looked at Jonathan with wide eyes. See, Jonathan had morning duty and I had afternoon duty, so I did not have this information when Josiah had sweetly convinced me to let him eat two cheese sticks--one of each kind for his afternoon snack. Yes folks, count them--that's 3 sticks of cheese. I don't know if that was the problem, but I do know that my husband put a ban on cheese sticks for a while. ha.

This was the kind of night I have dreaded for a long time. At least the sun is up and whatever was the culprit seems to have fled the scene.