If you're feeling queasy, better to skip this post altogether

Y'all. WHAT A MONDAY. And it's not even noon yet. I can't remember what I was supposed to be doing today, but I'm almost certain my to-do list did not have any mention of puke. But it's been altered and mentions that now. Bleh.

It all started one moon ago (last night). Actually, scratch that, it started yesterday at lunch. The kids were anxious to finish up and get back to playing some made up game together. They each had told me how hungry they were for lunch and whined about it "taking so long" (geez, I know, why can't I slap together lunch for five people any faster than a normal human, ACTIVATE MOM POWERS NOW PLZ) so when they left the table having only eaten half a sandwich each, I was HIGHLY PEEVED. I told them they needed to sit back down and finish these sandwiches AT LEAST because there were going to be absolutely no snacks until dinner. No one seemed phased at all by this threat. I'm not in the habit of passing out snacks anyway so I guess they have been conditioned for this. So I thought I'd throw in another incentive to eat lunch. "We are having spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. NO SNACKS. NO ALTERNATE DINNER." Dun dun DUNNNNNNNN....

They still didn't care. I guess they figured they'd worry about that when the time came. And when the time came (dinnertime, that is), I told them to either wash up and get ready to eat spaghetti, or put on your pajamas and go to bed. Sam and Molly did not hesitate to get ready for bed. Although Molly was a little torn up about going to bed so early and tried to negotiate a new deal wherein she was ready for bed, but playing in the living room. Not a chance, chickadee. So she went to bed too. Will ate enough for all missing parties and I sorta kinda knew this would all end in disaster but I also hoped that maybe they'd learn a lesson out of all this....

Of course the only person who learned a lesson was me. And the lesson is that everyone will eat dinner from now on NO MATTER WHAT, even if that includes being force fed whatever is being served for dinner that night.

Molly was up at 3, Sam was up at 3:15, Will was up squawking at 3:30, and then Sam was throwing up by 3:40. (Since these children are about 98.5% Steve, they take after him quite a bit. So when their stomachs get too empty, they have this tendency to barf. Of course, it's not much of anything since their stomachs are empty, but it is still quite the production. Also, HIGHLY ANNOYING at 3:40 in the morning.) So since the children are somewhat scared of me from the hours of midnight til 6am (as all children should be), Steve was summoned. He can sympathize with this empty barfing much better than I can. I heard the door upstairs opening and closing loudly, stairs creaking over and over, and finally, cereal being poured in the kitchen. The last straw was when they woke Will up. I marched into the kitchen and gave them a (PG rated) piece of my mind (the piece in my head was rated R, of course). Everyone was well aware that they were in Big Trouble. By the time we all got back to bed, it was about 4:30. Being that I'm pregnant and doomed to never sleep well again in my life (or so it feels), it took me about an hour and a half to fall asleep. At which point I was thinking I might as well just stay awake and start getting everything ready for school. Because holy light at the end of the tunnel - BOTH KIDS GO TO SCHOOL TODAY WAHOO!!!

Except I didn't stay up. I fell asleep and our resident alarm clock (Will, set for 5:45 each morning) slept in til 7:15!!!!!!!!!!! Talk about a mad dash to get everyone out the door. The bus comes at 7:40 and the kids were out there by 7:39. Of course the bus ran early this morning and most of our neighbors missed it as well. Steve took the kids up to the high school to catch the bus and off they went. Willie and I started in on all the chores we (I) neglected to do over the weekend while we were playing DIY and just as I was finishing chores and getting ready to put him down for a nap (and have quiet time! eat breakfast! sit down!), I got a call from the school.

Molly was puking.

We were running so late this morning that I told the kids to PLEASE BE SURE to eat breakfast at school. They offer breakfast every morning and I know some mornings my kids eat a little breakfast here and then have something else at school, depending on what's being offered. But this morning there was barely time to pull on snow boots, much less cook up eggs and toast. As soon as the secretary told me she puked, I knew she didn't eat breakfast there. Obviously I had to go pick her up (and risk Will ruining his morning nap with a car nap) (!!!) and sure enough she did not eat breakfast. I got her home (after singing 9,000 verses of Wheels on the Bus to keep Will awake) and made her a pb&j to get something in her stomach. I set her up at the table to eat and took Will in the living room to change his diaper. Dirty diaper in hand, I walk back through the kitchen to see Molly puking up half a sandwich into the floor vent. Lovely.

Got her into the shower and washed all the puke out of her hair. Put her in clean pjs and had her eat a banana and some applesauce. Those two things stayed down just fine. Will went down for a nap (not happily) and Molly is in our bed reading a stack of books. I finally finished the puke laundry in time for Will to wake up and Molly to start jumping around asking for more snacks. Obviously cured.

In other news, I have plenty of things to blog about and absolutely no kid-free time to do so. Hopefully I can crank out a few posts soon. In the meantime, if you could please send me some good parenting juju and maybe some clorox wipes and more patience, that would be greatly appreciated. GRACIAS, AMIGOS!

Don't leave us, Daddy!