I left the crying, barking puppy in her crate where she couldn’t get into trouble and I carried my son into the bathroom. He said he didn’t have to throw up again so I stripped off his puke-soaked PJs and started a shower. After a quick shower and reluctant teeth brushing, he was shampoo-fresh, in clean jammies, in my bed, sipping an orange Gatorade. The puppy was still crying. Good news: I stopped crying. It was tunnel vision time.
I put on cartoons for Jack and headed back to his puke bed, gagging. It was really pukey. Like, caked on puke. Like I could see the pasta and peas we had for dinner puke. Luckily the duvet and throw weren’t compromised. I cut my losses and put all the puke sheets and PJs in a garbage bag and threw them out. It was either that, or scrape off the puke THEN wash them. Fine, I took the lazy way out. (Jack is now the happy recipient of brand new Lego sheets!)
His room smelled like puke, so I opened the windows, sprayed Lysol, and shut the door. I checked back on Jack who was resting comfortably in my bed watching something on Nick Jr. He was keeping the Gatorade down which made me feel better. Now for the puppy. Lucy is a 9-week-old golden retriever.
She is crate training and it was a miracle she didn’t pee in there; it would have been another smelly mess to clean up! I quickly ran her outside to do her business. When we got back inside, Lucy was wide-awake and my sweet, sickly Jack was sound asleep in my bed. I covered him, kissed his forehead, and took Lucy into the den to play a little.
I sat there in the dark living room, on the rug, thinking … another grand single mom survival story.
We’re all home today. Jack is napping and eating ice pops. Lucy is standing guard over her boy. I’m trying to work, ugh.
Photo: Getty
