[Posted to am 6/25/01, a measly six days after school let out. --
TR]



0600. Dawn is just peaking through with her early light.



I am typing away, clickity-clack, answering important posts with
my normal charm, wit, humor, and humility.



Spawn, drawn by the staccato noises, slogs down the hallway and
into the computer room. She quietly sways to her own music, still
unsure if she's going to wake or fall back asleep, while waiting
for me to pick her up.



I stop typing in mid-message and look at her. We don't need verbal
noise to ask and answer if this is indeed what she's waiting for.
She mutely shuffles forward and reaches upwards. I quietly pull
her up and into my lap. She burrows down in my over-sized T-shirt
and wraps it around her tiny frame like a favorite blanket. Soon,
the soft snuffle of her breathing tells me that she's made her
choice.



I go back to reading e-mail and news articles. Since typing is now
out, I recline slowly back to make myself more comfortable.



I reach for my coffee cup.



There is a sudden, muffled, "brap;" the detonation that ALL
parents know and dread.



My chest is bathed in something warm. The fumes hit me like
mustard gas.



I drop my coffee cup and kick the chair as far back from my
computer as possible.



Spawn is awake again, but not fully. She's trying to cry between
heaves.



I hunch forward and retain the wrap around Spawn and jump up. My
computer chair, designed by The Experts not to tip over, falls
back with a loud thump. Still hunched over, I sprint out of the
room and into the hallway, towards the Daughter-units' bathroom.
Spawn and her stomach's contents are cradled together. The
unmistakably soured odor of stomach lining and partially digested
broccoli stagger me. My eyes tear from the acridness.



We make it down that twelve-foot tube of carpeting without a
dollop dribbled.



Spawn has not stopped heaving. She's now fully awake. The world
now knows she is very unhappy.



Her sisters, also awakened by the Sound That Is Universal, run to
their bathroom adding another level to the cacophony of noises.
Both make some very unhelpful remarks about the smell. I growl at
them to get out and go get SWMBO.



I strip the Spawn down and start the shower going. She's a
shivering Medusa. I put her nightgown into one of the sinks. I
remove my T-shirt, thankful for its billowy cotton mass. I wrap it
into a ball and set it in on top of Spawns. SWMBO rounds the
bathroom corner and skids to a halt. The haunted pity radiates
from her eyes.



We tag team Spawn in the shower. She responds slowly, enjoying the
warm tickling caress of the water. Her body still spasms
uncontrollably but her stomach is no longer trying to purge
itself. As SWMBO washes her, we calm her. She is toweled her off.
She has one final single body-wracking spasm as if exorcising the
experience from her body.



SWMBO volunteers to sit with Spawn and suggests I clean up. I do
so.



When I finish, I check in on Spawn. She is asleep again, wrapped
in her own blanket, in her own bed. SWMBO motions for us to leave.



So much for grand plans and sunny summer days; Boardwalk and 17
will have to wait. They aren't that important.



The Ranger