Good Morning and Good Night.........
Well, good morning Mom. I'm sure you will be getting up pretty soon. It's almost 4am. So probably in another hour, you will be up. Me? Well, I am getting ready to head to bed for the night. Why so late, you ask? Let me tell you....
I went to bed at midnight but Chris was reading in bed and I couldn't fall asleep with his little light on. So, I laid awake waiting for him to finish. About 12:45am, Chris and I both thought we heard Alexia cry but it was brief and we didn't hear it again. She had slept on the recliner in the gameroom upstairs...because she never wants to sleep in her own room. Since we didn't hear her anymore, we thought things must be fine...but something told me to get up and check. And boy were things not fine. Not fine at all. Alexia was downstairs and had just come out of the bathroom when she told me that she had gotten sick all over the place. I hadn't turned the light on yet, so I didn't see anything. I asked her where the mess was and she said you will know it when you see it. I turned the gameroom light on and there was purplish-red liquid sprayed all over the floor, recliner, 2 big blankets, teddy, blankie, and the stereo speakers. But wait.....that's not all. Then as she tried to run downstairs to get to the bathroom...she didn't quite make it. The last 5 stairs, surrounding wall and wood floor at the bottom...also sprayed with that nice purplish-red liquid. I didn't even know where to begin. Well, as I tried to think of what she had eaten that would come out that color...I remembered. What is the worst thing you could spill on a carpet? Yup...you guessed it....she had drank 100% pure Welch's grape juice for dinner and now it is all over my house. I used my carpet shampooer to suck up as much as I could. Then I tried every trick I've ever heard to clean grape juice out of carpets but nothing worked. Apparently, once you mix stomach acid with grape juice...there is nothing that can touch it. So, now I have a nice purple pattern on my stairs and gameroom floor that we will be stuck with until we replace the carpets...which we had no plans of doing anytime soon.
So, now I am wide awake at 4am after doing 2 loads of "sick" laundry and scrubbing the floors with every cleaning agent known to man. Alexia seems fine now...no more episodes, but she will stay home from school tomorrow just to be safe...plus I need to sleep sometime and if I went to work tomorrow, I would probably only get about 1 hour of sleep...if that.
So, as you get up and start your day with a nice cup of coffee and a little internet time...think of me and be glad you are where you are in life and that you are not here cleaning up the grape juice vomit of 8 year old little girls. I envy you.
Good morning and good night,
Denise
Addendum:
I wrote back with my sympathies, while indeed counting my blessings for my current lifestyle, and asked why Lexi decided to run all the way downstairs. I also suggested having a bucket or something handy in case of sickness, like we did back in the day. Her answer.......
Alexia slept in the gameroom, which is an open loft type room. Her bathroom options were mine or the one she shared with Austin or downstairs. She said she chose downstairs because there were less doors in her way to go through. She thought she had a better chance of running down the stairs and going straight into that bathroom rather than have to go through several doors. Her bathroom is between her room and Austin's room but can only be accessed by going through one of the bedrooms. None of them were very conveniently located. We don't usually set out "puke buckets" unless we know we have a problem. She wasn't sick when she went to bed. It came on suddenly in the middle of the night. So suddenly, she couldn't even get out of the chair. She was covered in it before she knew there was an issue. When we do use one though, we choose to use a small garbage can rather than a big spaghetti pan that we cook with later like I had growing up! Ahhh....the fond memories.
Addendum:
Believe it or not we still have that old aluminum spaghetti pan. It served as an RV wash bucket in our Driveaway travels. A truly multi-use vessel. It is now enjoying semi-retirement on a shelf in the workshop. It has been around since my own childhood. I remember Mom's spaghetti and meatballs simmering on the stove. I also remember our own pot of spaghetti sauce and Pat getting mad at me one time and flinging it all over the floor and ceiling. Ahhh....the fond memories.
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