Things That Make You Wanna Ralph

It all started one week ago today. I had the absolute worst experience I've endured as a parent. Changing a diaper is one thing, even if it's right after feeding her a plate full of Thanksgiving squash and then listening to her grunt it into her pants. Shoving a Q-tip up your little girl's nose to dig for gold is also a shameless experience. And dodging projectile urine while trying to provide for her sanitary enjoyment is yet another thing. As proud and loving parents we have taken on all of those challenges, all for the well-being of our daughter. But a few days ago, I went into the great unknown. I have yet to experience uncontrollable vomiting or dumps in the bathtub, but I think I could handle those conflicts of interest better than what happened the other morning. I was pressed into the kind of action for which I was not prepared.

It instantly gave me that sick feeling like the one you get when you know you really have to go but you also know you're never going to make it to the bathroom in time. And you can't just squeak out a few little farts to relieve the pressure because either the whole band plays or nobody plays at all. It's that moment you realize that your current pair of underwear are about to die a hero and be retired if they survive, or be subtly buried in the backyard next to your childhood pets if they don't.

Or so I'm told.

Kaitlyn sneezed straight into my mouth. Even writing that sentence triggers my gag reflex. I was afraid to swallow for two days after.

Like every other morning, I picked her up out of her crib to take her downstairs for breakfast. She had been awake for a few minutes and was quietly crying to get my attention. I innocently walked over to her crib, leaned over the edge to say good morning, picked her up, and then it happened. I was about to lay a good-morning-kiss on her cheek, and she initiated the full-frontal assault just as I was in mid-pucker.

No warning. No facial expression like she's just inhaled half the spice rack. No pushing my face out of the way before it happened. No half-stoned look like most people get right before they're about to sneeze. And definitely no holding back when it finally happenend. She just let it fly. And boy, did it fly. Right into my mouth.

My first instinct, as involuntary as anything I've ever known, was to swallow. So I did. And whatever she honked into me instantly felt like it was about to be yacked back up. I quickly surmized that whatever she withdrew from her sinuses and deposited into mine should have been chewed first. Suddenly, I had no appetite for breakfast.

Despite a brutal flu-like sickness that has been going around here, I have yet to catch all of what many of my co-workers and their families have contracted. But I definitely have something. When Kaitlyn sneezed into my mouth, she was fighting something herself at the time that is now finding a home inside of me. So I've been at home, sick for the last two days. Today is better than yesterday but I'm still a little way from feeling good enough to leave the house.

As if this incident wasn't bad enough, Kaitlyn tried to top her version of Sneeze-a-palooza. I gave her a bath yesterday, a normal bath by all appearances. But when I picked her up out of the tub, I heard a squeaking noise that I thought was coming from the floor. So I looked down to figure out what it was. But alas, a squeaking noise from the floor would be too simple. Squeaking noises from the floor don't stink. That's right ... Kaitlyn's soaking wet butt had unashamedly farted on my bare arm. Flashbacks of the sneeze flooded my mind. I checked my arm for brown spots that I didn't come with. Much to my relief I was spotless. I'm not sure I've ever put a diaper on her as quickly as I did yesterday morning. For all I know, I may have put the diaper on backwards, but it was on her and prepared to catch whatever she was about to throw. At the moment, that's all that really mattered.

Fortunately, today's a new day. And it's only a matter of time before she squeezes out something new.