Big Daddy Paul

We had a three-family play date on Friday. I thought things went pretty well, with the kids getting along well and nobody needing medical attention. Well, at least nobody needed medical attention on Friday.

On Saturday, we took Malcolm out to go golfing. On the practice green, he started looking, well, a little green. After mumbling something unintelligible, he proceeded to projectile vomit all over that finely mowed grass.

It was like this, except with more chunder!

Not wanting the 50 or so kids lined up for a youth golfing event to have to putt through any more puke, I picked him up and placed him in the rough next to the green. He continued to toss his cookies for another minute or so, while I rubbed his back and tried my best not to stare at the large chunks of fruit that were spewing forth from his mouth. Seeing all those kids with a hopeful and energetic look in their eyes was inspiring, at least until they saw what Malcolm was doing and started dry heaving themselves. After the episode finally came and went, I got some paper towels to clean up the mess. Let me tell you, cleaning sticky, chunky, gelatinous barf off of a tightly mowed green is a bit of a surreal experience. You should try it some time!!!

We got home and Malcolm threw up some more. Sadly, most of it went on our couch, which we had professionally cleaned last week. Timing is everything in life, isn’t it. I found out that two of the other kids at the play date were training to be supermodels on Friday as well. I think it may have been some bad cheese that we ate.

Ah, to heck with it. I don’t care. You know what time it is? It’s fantasy football time! I love fantasy football. If fantasy football were a gay man, I would marry it, even in a red state. If fantasy football wore Betty White’s dress to the Emmy’s, I would tell it it looked amazing. (And then take it home for some sweet lovin’!) Fantasy football could call me a racist, say that FEMA is building concentration camps, and compare me to Hitler, and I would still give it a big juicy hug at the end of each day. In order of awesomeness, my priorities are breathing, drinking, eating, Amy, fantasy football, money, a good toilet, Friday Night Lights, and then Malcolm. The hold that fantasy football has over me is stronger than Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Situation, put together!

Amy joined the party again this year by drafting her own team. She and her college pals started a league, and I helped Amy prepare for her draft. (That’s why she shows up so high on the priority list!) My draft is next monday. I will be feverishly preparing for the draft, so my posts my be a bit sparse this week. Wish me luck, and stay away from mozzarella cheese at my house, for the time being!

It’s almost like there is a theme to my posts this week, eh?

There are two kinds of people in this world, people who use their kids as excuses to get out of things things they don’t want to do, and liars. I have used Malcolm’s sickness to get out of, birthday parties, weddings and everything in between. The funny thing is that he doesn’t even get sick all that much, although you wouldn’t know it by the number of times we’ve played the sick kid card. We usually use pretty big whoppers, too, when explaining why we missed a party. According to our friends, Malcolm, in his mere four years on this planet, has contracted rickets, tourettes, chicken pox, rooster pox, myocardial infarctions, and, my personal favorite, parrot fever, which you can only obtain by inhaling bird feces. (That last one is a guaranteed conversation stopper, so use it when you feel really guilty about missing something.)

Even so, there are times when Malcolm has actually been sufficiently sick as to warrant not leaving the house. But how to decide whether to miss something because your child is sick, or go anyways and risk the spread of the malady? Luckily for you, I have prepared the following cheat sheet to help you out when your little ones are ill. Enjoy!

Yes, but what do you do when they have Cheerios coming out their nose?

Runny Nose – Use this as a sign that you shouldn’t go to the event that you were dreading, whether it be a birthday party for the kid who humps your leg, or any fundraiser for your friends’ kids. The good thing about being a parent is that you can use the sick kid excuse to get out of things that don’t even involve your kid! It works for ANY art show or event that has the words “cat show” or “ballroom dancing” in the title. Been invited to a dinner party at your vegan friends’ house? “Oh, sorry can’t make it, Malcolm is sick and we just can’t leave him with a sitter.” Pure gold.

Cough – Gets you out of the mid-tier events, things you may not necessarily enjoy, but would go to if there wasn’t a cool sporting event on TV that day. This list includes church and group outings for the families at your child’s school. Sure, your kid would be alright going, but there’s always a chance that they’ll get the other kids sick, and besides, the US Open is only on once a year!

Vomiting – Sadly, vomiting is pretty serious. You may have to miss date night if your kid is throwing up. You should also give up seats to sporting events and concerts. It’s really not fair for a high school kid to have to scrub the couch to remove all remnants of throw up, just so you can grab dinner and a movie, or a U2 show. Worse yet, high school students usually WON’T scrub anything, ensuring that the smell of throw up will infest the couch for years to come. Of course, if the babysitter is a family member, then feel free to go anyways. Blood is thicker than water, and that extra thickness will help  you enjoy your time away from your even more whiny and annoying kid, while saving the couch.

Fever – Cancel all your plans for this one. Granted, I am scarred, as Malcolm had a febrile seizure once and I will be forever haunted by the image of his eyes rolled back into the back of his head and him shaking uncontrollably. We play it safe though and will always remain at home with him when his temperature exceeds 102.

All of the above – this is the only reason Malcolm gets to stay home from school. We are paying good money for him to not be at home with me, and missing out on that is travesty for everyone involved (mostly me.) Of course, if I am sick too, then it is easier to justify sitting around the couch all day watching movies. But if I am well, putting up with a sick kid is the last thing I want on a school day. When the school asks why he his face is bright red and is throwing up all over the place, I tell them he was out in the sun a lot the day before and ate a bad doughnut. That usually works. If it doesn’t, at least you’ve bought yourself some time. With that time, you can be researching new and exciting diseases to use as your next excuse.

Malcolm is sick today. Actually, I am sick too, so I should say, “we” are sick. So, instead of spending the day with our friends at dad’s group, we are bunkered down in the house. Like with many things, I have noticed it is a lot easier to deal with Malcolm as a four-year-old sick patient than previous versions. Here is a recap:

OK, this may not be an accurate representation of him throwing up. Just imagine him like this, except instead of wearing a woman's hat in the back seat of a car, he is throwing up in the toilet. The big boy toilet!

Throw up. The current model threw up in the toilet. Sure, when it caught him by surprise (on Amy’s watch, luckily) he chundered all of over the kitchen. (Before you get all mad at me for making Amy clean up the kitchen, remember that I am sick, and was asleep. So there.) Previous versions of Malcolm required an extensive clean up and a pretty miserable bath after every eruption. This Malkie can be ordered around a little bit more. When Malcolm started dry heaving this morning, I quickly yelled, “If you’re gonna throw up, go do it in the bathroom!!!” He looked at me and asked why, and I told him that it would be less messier that way. He shrugged, went to the toilet and threw up. Bonus! Look at all the cleaning and bathing we just saved. I absolutely love this kid! Plus, at this age, I no longer have to keep constant track of him thinking he will choke on his own vomit in bed. Double Bonus!

TV. When he was young, we didn’t want him to grow up addicted to TV, so sick days weren’t the TV orgy they are now. Today, we are watching movies non-stop. He has watched Monsters, Inc. and Mary Poppins, and we’ll watch some baseball when he gets up from a dad imposed sick day nap. We used to be worried that our son would have a dormant mind if he vegged out to too much TV. Now that he has started doing multiplication (Seriously! He was doing 5 x7 and 6 X 3 and everything in between. What a math nut!), we know that a dormant brain is simply not an option and allow little binges like this. Plus, I don’t feel well, so I don’t have the energy to entertain him like a hot nanny can. And yes, Mary Poppins is one smoking hot nanny.

Food. What the heck do you feed a small child who is throwing up all the time? I can’t even remember. This version gets exactly what I am getting. Won ton soup. I am not sure why, but my “go-to” food when I feel ill is won ton soup and OJ. They don’t exactly go together, but neither does popcorn and strawberry milk, and I like that combo too. Amy dutifully hit up the grocery store for our supplies and we both enjoyed a lunch on the couch, watching movies and counting our blessings that someone else was cleaning up the vomit. We could get used to this…