Nervous Laughter

Yesterday I sent my friend an email including a sentence which started like this: "Speaking about vomit..."

It's never good to need to start a sentence this way.

Nothing is humorous about throwing up. Nothing. Yet, as I stood in the bathroom with my sick child at two o'clock last night, rubbing her back, softly whispering it'll be okay, and holding her hair away from her face, I had the absolute worst parental reaction.

I started laughing. Not oh-this-is-so-funny laughing, but rather a uncontrollably pained and nervous laughter that bubbled up despite the fact that nothing was even remotely humorous. In hindsight, I have to chalk this up to some twisted coping mechanism. Like, if I wasn't laughing, I would have been crying.

I'd be entirely unfit for the medical profession.

In the last several days, all three girls have gotten sick. Two of the three have thrown up multiple times throughout the nights -- the type of groggy, confused, scared vomiting that drains their energy, ends up on pillows, and results in hallway lights abruptly flicked on and squinting, disoriented parents ushering crying children to the bathroom, hoping that they'll make it to the bathroom linoleum instead of hitting the hallway carpeting.

We've done more laundry, used more Chlorox, and scrubbed more floors than I would like to report.

Oh, I so hope that we're on the upswing now.