Growing up is NOT a good thing

I'd like to dedicate this post especially to Margaret, who loves when I write about this stuff.

So Owen got a stomach virus a while back.

He woke up vomiting around 4:00 a. m. Because what's the point of vomiting if you can't wake your parents out of a deep sleep?

We got him cleaned up and he seemed a little better. He told me, absolutely pea-green and smiling, "I GROWED UP!"

"Oh, I'm so sorry, little man."

We tucked him back into bed and I said to Chris, "What are we going to do about tomorrow?"

I had a job interview I couldn't miss and it's always hard for Chris to miss work.

"I wouldn't worry about it," Chris said. "He seems fine now."

"I know, but it usually takes an hour to vomit again," I replied.

Chris looked at me like I was a crazy person.

So when Owen woke up yarfing at 5:04, that was the best part.

Boo-yah, Chris.

Not that there was, you know, much competition. For being the best part of vomiting, I mean. Usually it is, "Well, at least watermelon tastes okay coming back up."

Still, when your kid is spewing, you find your joy where you can.

Owen barfed every hour for the next four hours. And then he started with the diarrhea, which he actually seemed to find more distressing than the growing up.

Anyway, the virus passed, and it actually did not manage to spread like these little buggers usually do.

But.

Something was off with Owen. He woke up every night, at least twice a night. He woke up every morning, crying that he had to "grow-up." He'd hustle his little self to the toilet and stand there, gagging.

It occurred to me that it would be easier for adults to throw up in the toilet if it were way, way, taller.

This went on for such a long, long, time (NINE DAYS!) that I finally, against my better judgement, decided to take him to the doctor. I know you shouldn't take your kid to the doctor for throwing up. But it was getting SAD, people.

On the way there, I asked Owen if he knew why we were going to the doctor.

"Yeah," he said, "because I hit myself in the face with a bucket."

Close.

"When the doctor comes in, you tell her about when you growed up."

So when the doctor walks in she asks what's wrong and Owen said, "I growed up last weekend."

What? Was that last weekend? How do you know that? Sam's timeline still consists entirely of "last night" or "tomorrow." Things that already happened, happened "last night." Things that have yet to happen will happen, "tomorrow."

I did some math, though, and he was wrong. So that's a relief. I don't need to deal with some crazy time-savant kid as well as a growing up kid.

She prescribed antibiotics and tums.

The first night was the first night in close to two weeks that he hadn't woken up, and hadn't said he felt sick.

The second night, he woke up 8 times.

The third night, he didn't wake up, and didn't cry about growing up.

Fingers crossed.