Flashback (warning: really gross)

I'm still dealing with consequences of feeding my kids cake, ice cream, brownies, chips, meatballs, potato salad, baked beans, BBQ and candy all day on Sunday. I just don't know WHAT I was thinking. Leah and Betsy's tummies are feeling better but Rosie has gone through about a diaper an hour all day. To be honest I'm a little relieved, at least no one is throwing up. I have an unreasonable fear of vomit. Crazy for someone in my line of work, right? Honestly I think I have post traumatic stress disorder. It may stem from the unfortunate peanut butter cup puke and poop episode of 2004.  I shudder just to think of it. What? Not familiar? Well, it happened shortly after my eye-foot uncoordinated self walked off the side of the basement stairs and broke my ankle. Emma and Leah woke up in the middle of the night vomiting ....and with severe diarrhea. We changed bedclothes, bathed kids, threw in a little Pepto, all good. An hour later repeat, an hour after that repeat again, and again. By 4 am, we had not one clean sheet or towel in the house but the kids were asleep. The next day they seemed fine. Which was good because hobbling over pukey cover with one crutch all night left me feeling worse than them. That night a complete repeat of the night before. I was thanking God I had washed up everything and vowing to take them in to the doctor at daylight. The next morning they were the picture of health, no fever, eating eggs and toast for breakfast. Which by the way I could not stomach because of the lingering odor of vomit (and worse) in the house. I really thought all was well. Two hours after bedtime I heard vomit splatter in the hall floor. I nearly wailed in despair. Nooo more, please make it stop. No sleep for days, pukey blankets, towels, sheets, clothes, carpets. If I had been more mobile I would have run away from home. As soon as the sun rose I called for a pediatricians appointment. I got my puke and poop covered kids in the bath and went to get some clean clothes out of the back of their closet (at this point all they had clean were fairy costumes and church clothes).Then I found it. A FOUR POUND bag of peanut butter cups. Almost completely empty. I confronted my evil, sadistic  sweet, clueless little girls. Had they been eating this every night. Why yes, they had been. Hiding in their closet, gorging themselves every night after lights out. And it never occurred to them that it might be making them feel just the teeniest bit sick.  So I've tried to get over it, really I have. But the smell of vomit does me in every time. Recently Rosie threw up for the first time. I let her eat a lot of corn for dinner. I mean a lot. Kids her age don't digest corn very well. Of course I didn't know this seeing as how I only have one or two kids . (See how I'm keeping myself completely innocent here). So in the middle of the night she pukes. It's in her hair , her clothes, her blankets, running down the side of her crib. I'm having serious peanut butter cup flashbacks. I strip her and carry her (dripping) to the tub. Put the clean kid in my bed and then clean up roughly 10 pounds of corn puke from the crib, the floor, the hallway, the tub. Throw the sheets and blankets and clothes into the washer, start it up, put the clean baby back to bed, put myself back to bed while congratulating said self on how well I handled it. Then morning comes. Clean up all of the green giant niblets that I missed and then open the washer. That's when I lost it . Not only does corn come out of the tummy in the same shape it went in, it also survives the wash, rinse and spin cycles. So yea, the bottom of  my washer was full of corn puke. I gotta tell you, CLEANING CORN PUKE OUT OF THE WASHER IS NOT IN MY CONTRACT OMIGOD ENOUGH ALREADY!  Off topic here but seriously wouldn't it be great if we got a contract. Then every so often you could have your agent renegotiate to get a better deal. Like including a no cleaning corn puke out of the washer clause. After considering how many cycles it might take to disintegrate corn I finally sucked it up and scooped it out, barehanded. I deserve a medal ....or maybe I just need PTSD therapy.