In The Blink Of An Eye

Early this morning, at 3:40 am to be exact, I woke up to Prince Charming, my 2 yr old, throwing up on my head.  You see, he likes to sleep petting my hair, scrunching my hair, or with his face on top of my head so he is touching my hair with his cheeks.  I assure you a blanket (like Belle had)

Belle & her Blanket

or a pacifier (which none of my kids would take) would have been SO much easier!  And, yes, all of you secretly or aloud saying "She lets him do this?!?", I do crawl into his full size bed every time he wakes up screaming "MOM!  WHERE ARE YOU?".   After spending 2 weeks cleaning up puke every night that he cried/screamed so much he got sick while sleep training, I vowed that I would let him decide when he was ready to sleep alone. 

But, I digress, back to today's sick incident (sorry for anyone looking at this while eating ).   So, from a sound sleep, with no warning whatsoever, I found myself needing to wash my hair...5 times....change bedding, and wash my poor sick boy up.  It was by far the most disgusting thing I have ever experienced in all of my years~this coming from an animal science/pre-vet major, social worker, farm kid, and mother of 14 years...I have plenty of experience with gross!   As I went downstairs to throw all the bedding & clothes in the wash (only to discover that I didn't have enough detergent for a full load), I saw the newspaper from the day before on the island.  As I'm silently complaining about the grossness of the event, the fact that I have no detergent & should've picked it up yesterday (I ended up reading to the girls' preschool class instead of grocery shopping :)  ), the tiredness of waking up @ 3:40 am when I knew the girls would be up by 7 (why are my kids getting up earlier after the time change?!?!) I saw the story on the front page.  Two Year Old & Godmother Killed By Fire.   They lived in a nice, new development, had working smoke detectors, were only 15 feet from the front door, the fire was contained to the kitchen, the Godmother was a nurse.....how did this happen?  I guess I like to think that if you have smoke detectors, a new house, if the fire is small, if you know what to do that everything will be okay.  I guess I'm wrong.   Little Averyana's mother will never get a chance to write about her daughter throwing up on her head....or any other moment or milestone.  At that moment, I  felt sick and my whole attitude changed from weariness to thankfulness.  I heard the song "In The Blink Of An Eye"  (MercyMe) & remembered that each moment is a gift...even if they're not what you want them to be or are covered in puke.  



Prince Charming snoozing
with Eli the dog & Chris the cat

So, I'm sending up prayers for the family & friends of Averyana & her Godmother Rachel, & I will cuddle my babies a little longer & squeeze them a little tighter as I spend my day playing nurse and janitor.  I hope that anyone who read that story in the newspaper or who reads it here will send all the positive thoughts & prayers for peace they can to this family.