Parenting 101

Congratulations to my sister Linda for starting her own blog!
Over the holidays, I bragged to Linda about how rarely we get sick in our house and when we do get sick, we never pass it on to one another. In other words, never in the history of the Peters household has there been more than 1 sick person at a time. I must have forgotten to knock on wood! Last Friday the stomach bug hit our household and 3/4 of us were very sick!!! Can you guess who has the strongest immune system and the biggest handwashing obsession??? ME! (Ok, I'm knocking on wood right now so I won't wake up tonight and find myself sick). Thursday night, after the girls went to bed, I was reading one of my favorite blogs Mrs. Dirnberger. Her blog is upbeat and fun. She was talking about how badly she wants children. She would gladly take the long nights, the postbaby body, all the stuff that goes with parenting. As I am reading it, I hear THE COUGH come from Emily's room. I immediately go into PARENTING DENIAL. See, our kids have a unique system for letting us know they are about to puke. They have a certain cough that comes about 10 seconds before it hits. So denial kicks in. That is NOT the pre-puke cough...it was just a cough...then I hear it...there's no denying the sound of a puke. Now, I have to stop right here and tell you I have been a parent for 10 1/2 years and I have NEVER in all that time seen vomit like this. It was the most violent and graphic act of vomiting I have ever seen. I screamed OMG, how many fish sticks did you feed this child for supper!!! Scott swears she had 8 so I must tell every parent out there an unknown fact. FISHSTICKS REPRODUCE AFTER CONSUMPTION. There were at least 54 fishsticks laying in a pile. But there were also fishsticks on the wall, on the floor, in her hair. I took her to the bathroom, at which time more fishsticks began to fly around the room. So we get her cleaned up and PARENTING DENIAL kicks in again. Parents, you know what I'm talking about. You're tired, you want to go to bed, so you look at each other and say, Oh, it was probably just a one time thing, she's fine. Let's put her back to bed. She'll be fine. Then she pukes again and you start the whole process all over again.
What makes this story really funny is that my sister Linda who seriously does have the healthiest kids I've ever known, just texted me while I am writing this and told me her son is puking. Go figure.