In which your humble narrator celebrates his daughter's existence and spills his guts.
As of last Friday, Child #2 has made the complete circuit around the sun. Feeling ever pressured by society's expectations that we celebrate these sort of milestones by "doing" "something" (other than our regular routine of keeping the children alive and then collapsing into the forgiving, oaky arms of a mid-priced Kentucky Bourbon once they're finally in bed), we organized an extremely modest festival in honor of Child #2's first year.
We invited two sets of friends with children near the same ages as ours (our only local friends with similarly aged children), plus my mother and sister. The children (all falling between 1 and 4 years) played as a group, mostly independently. Food was eaten. Cake was mashed into faces. Fun was had by all until everyone had to go home to take a nap. Child #1, currently suffering from bad pollen allergies, was watery-eyed and full of snot at the end of the party. I trotted out to the local chain apothecary to purchase some antihistamines for his sad looking little self.
Walking back to the car, I thought to myself, "Hrmmm, I feel a little bit queasy. Must have been the cake" (not usually partaking in rich, butter-creamed sugar-bombs). And I went back home.
The next 6 hours are a bit foggy. I know that I completely purged my entire digestive track with a violence best described as "Stalinist." I remember sitting on the potty thinking, "I am going to have a terrible funeral. The Rabbi is going to have to tell everyone that I died from pooping out all of my internal organs. Everyone will be embarrassed."
Child #1 got it and puked all over my house... but I was sick so I didn't have to clean it up. He was so ill that rather than running around as a maniac as per usual, he actually spent most of Sunday in my bed watching Curious George cartoons, at least while we weren't sleeping or he wasn't leaning over to vomit on my pillow.
Needless to say, we survived. It was yet another vile virus brought home courtesy of Wife-a-roo who apparently works in an open sewer staffed by lepers militantly opposed to hand-washing. We're thinking about putting up a decontamination tent in the yard.
In better news, it's the last week of term. By this time next week, I should be free and unencumbered by undergraduate papers for at least 4 weeks. Now about writing that dissertation...
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