Last week we were at the Desert Botanical Gardens when Claire proceeded to vomit her entire lunch all over herself, the stroller, and a few nearby cacti. After her lunch was out of her system she was totally ok. It was a wild experience and the only other time she was sick like that was six months ago when she pulled a Linda Blair and projected milk vomit everywhere. I remained relatively calm last week, but then today happened.

When Donna had her C-section and I watched over the curtain as Claire was pried from her womb, I didn’t freak out. I thought I would, but I didn’t. Today I felt like I should’ve freaked out more, but I didn’t. Day care called me after noon and said Claire had thrown up. Now I was thinking like last time when she puked it all up but then was fine. They didn’t say “hey, come get your kid” … they were just like … “um, Claire threw up. She’s in her crib now” La-dee-da. Finally I just asked her if I had to come get Claire. They agreed and I proceeded to find a sub for my class. Eventually I begged my friend to cover the class, while daycare was calling back wondering why I wasn’t there. Give me a break. It had been a whole 10 minutes, so I finally got to daycare and Claire was lying on her stomach on the table with a lady rubbing her back. She smiled and made a comment about Claire acting like she had a rough night of drinking before I hauled her toward the truck.

There’s more traffic in South Chandler than anywhere else in the universe right now, and then every time I jounced along the shoulder in the smoldering dust she’d start to heave more. I pulled over for the umpteenth time and tried to call the doctor who was at lunch. Donna and I decided on Urgent Care, where we’d never been. By this time Claire had puked over a dozen times, and by the time Donna met me there, we were in an examination room. After looking at Claire for about two nanoseconds, the PA said “Well, we can’t really help her. You’ll have to go to the ER.  But we thank you for choosing us first.” We weren’t on a Southwest flight to Pittsburgh! Our toddle was lying on a table with sunken eyes, am empty belly, and bile dribbling from the side of her mouth.

After a quick call to the pediatrician, we ended up at the Pediatric Emergency Room near Donna’s work. The nurse shoved a small needle into the back of Claire’s hand and dug around for her vein before starting IV fluids to rehydrate her.

We laid there and watch Oprah and were happy for the private room. Remind your children to only get hurt in the middle of the day so you can get your own private room with Oprah and Bill Gates on the television. …

Anyway, they pumped her full of liquids for a few hours and desperately waited for her to pee to the point where we squeezed her every few minutes. When she finally pees I ran out in the hall the nurses station and pronounced “SHE PEED!” The nice nurse almost patted my hand before saying “I will make sure I tell the doctor so you can go home…” I also most skipped back to our room since it was almost 7PM. By now they had tons of little people of all colors and sizes shoved behind curtains, and we were sure they’d like our room but it still took another hour before a nurse we’d never seen before came in. He contradicted everything told to us and then waved goodbye. We rolled our eyes and drove as fast as possible to Panda Express for a well wanted dinner almost 7 hours after Claire began this journey from vomiting on herself at day care to rushing home from the ER full of fluids in her belly.