And in other news

Clara's afraid of our laptop. Specifically, she's afraid of its slideshow screensaver. It's all photos of Hester (of course!) and she freaked out when she saw her baby's face flashing across the screen. I had to pet the computer, talk to it in a sweet voice, and give Clara a treat to make her stop. It was pretty funny, actually.

Warning: This post is all about baby barf

You know how when you go to Sea World and you head into the big stadium for the killer whale show and the announcer is all, "The first 20 rows have been designated as the Official Shamu Splash Zone! Don't sit in those rows unless you want to get SOAKED!"?

Well, Hester herself is the very epicenter of another Official Splash Zone: Baby Hester is a barfer, and she's damned good at her craft.

In the 4 weeks she's been home, Hester has Officially Splashed these people:

--Me, of course
--Her Mumzy, natch
--Auntie J. (in public!)
--Auntie Y. (twice in rapid succession)
--Her visiting nurse (only the shoes, but still)
--C., a kid in my child care program

She has Officially Splashed in these locations:

--Every room of our house, save the bathroom
--Starbucks (2 of them!)
--Mr. Crepe
--The car
--Her car seat (and oh! how it sucks to wash the car seat cover)
--Outside in the yard when I'm working

She has Officially Splashed these v. uncomfortable places:

--Down my shirt and into my bra (twice)
--Into the holes of my Crocs shoes and onto my bare toes
--On our steep and v. narrow stairs
--Into the Maya Wrap as I held her, thus coating herself and me (a two-fer; she's done this many times)

Petunia and I have gotten pretty good at guessing when she's going to spew, and I always feel v. proud when I catch her in time to save her outfit (like I did 30 minutes ago! Brava, Mama!). However, she still catches us off-guard quite a bit. Since her barfing is reflux-related, she might hurl mid-feeding or she might wait an hour and a half to let loose the tide. She's on reflux meds and we do all the usual precautions, including keeping her upright 40 minutes after each feeding and not allowing her to sleep flat on her back, but she's still hurl-a-riffic.

Hell, at least Clary B. appreciates Hester's gift.

If you have a weak stomach, it's best to move along now

Last night began pleasantly enough. The kids went home on time, I had 90210 to watch and leftovers to eat, and I needed to make a quick trip to the Price Chopper. Clary B. visited with our neighbor Green Thumb while I was at the store, and when I went to retrieve her, she was v. happy to see me in her cute doggy way. We came home and settled down, ready for a night of high school nostalgia.

Except...except...remember that scene in The Goonies when Chunk confesses his prank at the movie theater? You know, the one where he pretends to throw up, and in doing so makes other people actually throw up in a visceral chain reaction? If so, I think you can imagine where this story's headed.

Several minutes into the Brenda/Brandon drama, Clara opened her mouth and barfed up what must have been 6 cups of cat food. Steaming, gloppy, swollen chunks of cat food, undoubtedly stolen from Green Thumb's big bag o' cat food. And then she did it again. And then the liquid began to separate from the solids, and the liquid started running toward the bookshelf, at which point I ran into the kitchen for paper towels and cleaner. And as I bent over, scooping up hot jellyish cat food barf with my paper towel-covered hand, I started to retch. And then Clara attempted to eat the cat food hurl, which made it worse. But I couldn't stop scooping and mopping since the barf juice was running toward the bookshelf and Clara kept trying to lick it up, so I just kept cleaning and retching. And then I barfed, too, right on top of the cat food barf. And then I did it again. And then I had to clean up not only Clary's barf, but my chicken dinner barf as well, dry heaving all the while. And when all the cleaning and barfing and retching was done, I called Petunia's cell phone to tell her that she can never, ever leave us again.

Petunia called back just a few minutes later and I told her what happened. I even managed to laugh a little, because the whole thing was pretty funny in a junior high kind of way. But then Clary barfed a third time--a smaller amount, mercifully--and Petunia got to hear me dry heave on the phone with her.

Some couples have phone sex; we have long distance dry heaving. We're romantic like that.

The good news: Clara's fine today. Me, too.
The bad news: I need to buy another bag of cat food for Green Thumb. Five dollars says the smell of the food through the bag makes me retch.

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!