Hurling Through the Dakotas

"MOM!" Dakota screamed from the doorway of his bedroom. With that, Trina and I came straight out of the bed. It didn't matter that it was 2:15 in the morning or that I had only been in bed for an hour. I was wide awake with Dakota's yell. As we hit the floor as a result of his scream we were able to see his outline as he threw up all over the floor. There is something strange about a small child when they are sick. He obviously had no idea what was going on other than the fact that he was experiencing something completely foreign and rather frightening. Now I learned early on in our marriage that when the kids are sick and throwing up that the best thing for me to do is to pretend I am asleep and let Trina deal with it. Now before I start getting e-mail about how mean and uncaring I am and that I should share in this responsibility, let me explain why my behavior is best for all concerned. If I catch a glimpse of one of the kids throwing up or if I have to clean it up afterwards, I will quickly begin to be sick myself. Once that happens, I will be little or no use to Trina and will in fact be even more of a burden since she will now have to clean up after me as well. So while I recognize that I should help, I feel it is best for the family unit as a whole if I just roll over and stick my head under the pillow. Before long, Trina has Dakota laying on the floor of the bathroom so that she can at least contain the mess in a small tile floored room. Once things are cleaned up and order is restored, she crawls back into bed and just to make sure I am still there, she sticks her ice cold feet in the small of my back and shoves me to the floor. As I climb back into bed, she merely asks sweetly, "Are you just coming to bed?" I guess I deserve that. I will trade getting pushed out of bed for holding a kid's head above the toilet any day of the week.