I’ve referenced it recently, but Joshua got sick not too long ago. As I was carrying him around, he was resting his head on my shoulder and began to throw up all over the place. I like to think I’m a pretty good Dad, but I’m not sure I ever went Full Dad until that moment.
I’m the kind of person that cannot see/hear/smell/knowabout someone else vomiting. I very quickly start to trigger a gag reflex and need to either extract myself from the situation or get ready to join the party. Not one of my strong suits.
But when Joshua let fly, it didn’t even occur to me to be disgusted. I immediately dumped my phone (at the moment of expulsion I was texting Janelle to let her know we were heading home) on a nearby fence, tore off the diaper bag (whose strap was a casualty), took off my now-useless shirt and picked up Joshua to hold him over a nearby trashcan so he could finish up.
Then we promptly waddled our way over to a nearby bathroom so I could get his clothes off and replace them with clean spares and get the two of us cleaned as much as possible. Makeshift paper towel safety bags were made for all the contaminated items and within 10 minutes we were on our way back to the car, a couple of shirtless bros, joking and laughing about how if he had thrown up on the little ore cart train we had been in line to ride moments before then the tracks would have gotten all gross and the train would have slipped all over the place.
I’m not sure I could repeat this performance with, say, your kid because when your kid throws up it is way gross. I see a lot of new parents commenting and asking online about how ready they will be to take care of their children. You’ll be ready. When the time comes, you’ll learn there are things that you can deal with that you never thought you could. I don’t just mean that you’ll be able to wrench the door off a car to free your baby from a car wreck. Many of your little fears or squeamish items will just fall to the wayside because there’s a deep part in you that knows that when it comes to children, sometimes you just need to get the job done and you don’t have time to think too hard about it.
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