One insight I often share with new parents or parents-to-be is the fact that after you have a kid, bodily fluids are not as scary as they once were.
As a parent, you will be pooped on, peed on and puked on.
And, after awhile, you will come to accept the fact that at any moment of any day you will most likely come in contact with your child's bodily fluids.
You will find yourself somewhere when all the sudden your child sneezes. A quick glance will tell you there's not a tissue for miles, and without a second thought, you will reach down, grab your shirt and wipe the snot off your child's face. Another technique I have seen is the "pinch the snot" with your fingers and then rub it on a pant leg or sock.
One time my when my 6-yr.-old son was a mere toddler, he came down with the flu. All he wanted was to he held. The problem was, all his body wanted to do was shit and puke. So suddenly I found myself in the middle of the night standing in the bathroom holding my somnombulist child while he preceeded to vomit on my shoulder and down my back.
I can do nothing but stand there, listen to it drip onto the vinyl floor, and feel it slide down between my butt cheeks. After his puking jag, I traded shoulders with my wife while I slipped away to take a nice hot shower to wash off the stench of vomit.
Only to return to shoulder duty and have him repeat the whole process all over again.
There isn't a parent out there who doesn't have at least one story like the one above.
Which brings me to last week: I'm at soccer practice for my 6-yr.-old with my 3-yr.old son in tow. Since practice is from 4:15-5:15pm, I brought along a smattering of snacks for the boys. I had an ice cold bottle of water, some wheat thins, a couple of nutragrain snack bars, some animals crackers and a zip loc sandwich baggie full of raisins.
As practice began, 3-yr.-old Cole uttered those famous words: "I'm hungry."
Fortunately, I was prerared. He ate a bunch of animal crackers before deciding to dig into the raisins. He smiled and showed me the raisins in his mouth. Then began to cough or choke.
Or something.
I couldn't tell if he was faking it or not. I asked him afew times if he was alright but got no answer. Seconds start to feel like hours and as I processed the information that he was indeed choking, he stuck his finger down his throat and dislodged the raisin - and half the contents of his stomach - out of his mouth and onto his legs and feet. And yes, my legs and feet as well.
I ran back to the car and got a bag of diaper wipes and preceeded to use those to clean ourselves.
Of course now the little puker didn't feel so hot so he wanted to sit on my lap for the rest of the duration of soccer practice, the perfume of puke wafting through the air. And I just sat there wit him and endured it.
I had both boys immediately jump into the tub once we got back home from soccer practice.
And then I took my shower.
