Thankful

My son and I were snuggled on the couch a few days ago, watching A Charlie Brown Christmas. He had started to get a little picky with his dinner, but nothing serious. Then, somewhere between the ending where all the kids look up into the air and sing Hark the Herald Angels Sing (all breathing in unison, of course) and the next special, which had Rerun; he sat halfway up, turned to say something, and just ... erupted.

Let me just start by saying this. Pink mango-sugar-something-citrusy drink + big cheese sandwich + sudden nausea + absorbent foam couch cushions = not good at all. I think you all might appreciate me not using my descriptive narrative talents on this one. Let's just say that his clothes, my clothes, and two thirds of the couch were in the danger zone.

He's usually really good at making it to the bathroom but this one was, in his words, a "surprise puke."

I spent the next hour bathing him, comforting him, and disassembling the couch to remove the dripping portions. I spent the hour after putting him to bed trying to wash them, which turned out to be not possible at all without contorting my body into weird shapes while I bathed the cushions in the bathtub, because they have covers that zip down one side but not far enough to remove the cushions for some unknown reason (though I would be willing to bet the designer didn't have a five-year-old), and wouldn't fit anywhere else.

I cleaned up the aftermath, and somehow had it in my head that I would sit down and finish the writing I hadn't finished earlier that day. Sure. Instead, I got up every thirty to forty minutes to comfort David (poor little guy), and finally retired to bed, only to get up from bed every thirty to forty minutes. My husband got home after working late, around 3:30 a.m., and proceeded to waltz in, plop down, turn on a bunch of lights, and go about his business as if it were 3:30 p.m. I was less than charitable in communicating my opinion about this. Then I had to get up again with David anyway.

This is parenthood.

Yesterday, feeling much better, David pulled out the card above, announced that I'm the "Best Mom in the Whole Wide World," and hugged me for a good five minutes.

This, too, is parenthood. It's pretty great.

In related news, I just came across this video (it's been up for a long time; it's just new to me), of portions of the Charlie Brown Christmas special dubbed by the cast of the show Scrubs. A few parts, like the show, are not for kids, but I thought the clip was pretty awesome.