Full Circle

Mom, Me and My Little People

I was a puker as a kid. Ear infections and the sniffles were for wussies. I went straight to the full-blown stomach-flu when I got sick. The kind of flu that laid me out helpless, begging for ice chips and requiring that I keep a small bucket within reaching distance at all times. The kind of flu that came on quick and thus meant that sometimes that bucket was not close enough, resulting in…well let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. And mom was always there. Cleaning it all up. Scrubbing the carpet. Sanitizing doorknobs with gallons of Lysol (a smell I still associate with those emesis-filled days). Wiping my little sweaty brow with a cool washcloth and washing my trusty blue vomit bowl for the upteenth time. It was thankless. And it was a window into my future.

For DNA is inescapable. And my girls are pukers. Shameless, full-on, without-warning, not-gonna-bother-with-a-simple-cold, stomach-flu-getters. I had it coming. All those times I laid on our velvety family room couch and called for my mother who would come only to hold my hair and rub my back while I heaved that latest attempt at a saltine cracker into that little blue bowl, meant I too would someday experience that precious joy of parenting. It was only fair.

So there was that time I found myself in the middle of a vomit-fest. One of my littlest people who was normally a blur of barefoot bouncing, incomprehensible babbling and crazy-making, was now just a little lump of sick. And I couldn’t keep up. I mean, what do you clean first? The screaming toddler with the remnants of last night’s pizza smashed deep into her hair? The blanket she’s now tangled in? The rug that has not escaped the fray? Or maybe my pajamas that have become the obvious casualty of my one-woman virus war? What do you do when your child does not yet have the requisite verbal skills to tell you she’s about to puke all over your new Ugg Slippers? How do you cope in your sleep-deprived state at 3 A.M. when the up-chuck won’t stop and she’s exhausted her last clean onesie?

Well, if you are me, you throw in the towel. Or rather, you cloak yourself with said towel like some sort of puke-shield, slump in a rocking chair, and clutch the boneless little frame of your diapered-daughter and wait for the next round. Because it will come. And you’re gonna have to wash that towel.

And then you call your mother.

“It won’t stop,” I whispered with my vomit-weary voice. “How can such a little person produce such copious amounts of puke? She could totally rival any post-homecoming college frat-house. I smell like old milk, and she’s…well, she looks like a drunk carnie who’s had one too many corndogs.”

“I know,” she would say trying to hide her satisfaction. “But this is just what moms do.”

And that’s when I learned Mom’s life lesson #4:

This is just what moms do.

And what is “this”? “This” is hugging your vomiting child. “This” is wiping buggers with your bare hands, sharing your last little piece of coveted chocolate cake, and surrendering sleep in place of worry. “This” is cheering like a rabid football fan for #2 in the toilet and leaving a full cart of groceries in the aisle as you escort the tantrum-throwing two-year old away from the canned goods. “This” is attaching an apparatus to your breasts like a jersey cow three times a workday so your baby gets “nature’s nutrients.” “This” is enthusiastically singing “You Are My Sunshine” off-key, and reading “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” for the gagillionth time. “This” is giving your whole heart in a way you never thought you could and then watching it scamper off to kindergarten without looking back.

My mom did all “this.” And I understand it now. I understand why she did it. She did it because she was a mom. And I now know that when you are a mom, you wear yourself out for the little people who take over your life. I now know that you donate your best days, your best efforts, and sometimes your best pair of shoes to those who could never understand what you’ve surrendered until they have children of their own.

And I know I could never really give back to her what she gave to me.

Except, at the end of her life, in one small way, I was able to repay the tiniest amount of my due. In those final days, cancer had ravaged her body and rendered her weak and weary of the suffering. And we found ourselves once again at opposite ends of that little blue bowl. And I as took it from her on my way to wash it out (and maybe spray some Lysol for good measure), she apologized. “I’m sorry you have to do this,” she said in a voice so soft I hardly recognized it anymore. “I’m sorry you have to sit here and clean up after me.”

“It’s okay, mom,” I said. “I’m a mom too, remember? And this is just what we do.”