I'm A Big Kid Now

You know how people always talk about those defining moments when you recognize yourself as a REAL grown up? Like, not the usual symbolic rites of passage such as one's twenty-first birthday, or voting, or getting married or even becoming a parent, but more like, "I not only vacuumed the apartment this week, I vacuumed out my CAR." Or maybe the awful moment when you realize McDonalds just doesn't even taste very good to you anymore.

Well. I've had those moments, too. But I think this morning may be the most memorable yet. I haven't taken my Zofran for several days now, and was really beginning to think that morning sickness had quietly departed and would bother me no more. So I brewed and drank some decaf coffee this morning, had my peanut butter toast, and then prepared to load the dishwasher with last night's pots and pans, which I had felt too exhausted to even mess with yesterday evening. They were mostly rinsed, but I caught sight of some disgusting clumpy particle or another (no, NOT fish, at least) and felt a little gag rising in my throat.

Now, I haven't actually thrown up in a couple of weeks. I HAVE had moments of dry heaving, though, and I figured that's all this was, so I turned around from the sink to get rid of the gross sight that had triggered it all. And projectile vomited all over the kitchen floor.

It was just horrible. Maybe the worst vomit of my adult life. There was toast coming out my NOSE, and yes, I'm going to share that little fact because if I had to experience it, SO DO YOU. Misery loves company.

It was also all over the place- basically an entire cup of fresh coffee came up- and let me just say I'm so glad it happened in the kitchen on the hard floor. I still can't believe that I didn't realize I was going to throw up, though. I mean, throwing up on the floor generally ends at around age seven, no?

So obviously it wasn't the puking that made me feel adult-like. It was the pulling myself together, washing the vomit out of my hair, and then spending the next twenty minutes cleaning it UP that made me feel like a grown up. Usually my first instinct after such an episode is to run crying to my bed for awhile (shamefully, this is true even if it's one of my own children who has done the puking) but today I just kind of shook it off and started getting out spray and paper towels. There was no one to take care of me but myself, and no one was going to clean this up but me. So I pulled on my (maternity) big girl pants and got to work.

I still feel like I deserve a treat today to even things out, though.