The Great Squash Incident of 2009

Ah, this is undoubtedly going to be a long post, so if you only have a minute, I'd suggest coming back later. Also it is about vomit, so if that offends you, don't read it. There, I've warned you. Now, where to begin.....

Audrey loves squash all of a sudden. The pureed butternut variety made by Gerber. I discovered this by accident while in Colorado, and now it is my "go-to" if I really want her to chow down. Yesterday she didn't eat much, so I chose squash for her for dinner, knowing she'd eat the whole container. The three of us headed out to our favorite italian restaurant for an early dinner. You see, it's good to go out to dinner early with a small child. Less chance of annoying other diners, and less chance of a complete meltdown from the child.....or the parents, truthfully. She behaved well, charming the owner and the waitress. The little boy (nearly 2 years old) two tables down was smiling at her too, as he leaned so far over the table that his chest was squishing is cheese ravioli. Dinner went smoothly, so much so that we even opted to stay for their World Famous Hazlenut Gelato. Hands down my second favorite dessert ever.

We came home, played with Audrey and gave her a bath. All signs pointed to a successful bedtime. She was clean, she was in her cuddly new pjs, and was indicating that she was tired after a rather full day. As a new mom, I cherish easy bedtimes. I fed her a bottle, and after just a few ounces she pushed it away. Ummm,...ok. I'm certainly not going to force her to eat. So I laid her in her crib, as I do each night, left the room and anticipated her imminent falling asleep. I changed into my pjs and was looking forward to finishing my book. Newsflash! Audrey was wide awake in her crib, rotating in circles and flinging her blankets/animals around. So I went and got her (and her bottle) and brought her into our room to play on our bed. We played,...and a while later I offered her bottle to her. Sure enough, chug-a-lug-a-lug, she starts drinking it up. Yay! This means she'll surely fall asleep,....surely. As I sat there feeding her, I started to relax, gazing lovingly into my daughters beautiful eyes. Such nice eyes, a mixture of blue and br...

BLEHHHHH. She puked. She stopped drinking, and everything she just drank came out onto me. James was in the room and immediatly sprung into fatherly action, grabbing a burp cloth and heading over to us. Audrey saw him coming and..

BLEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHHH. It was amazing. Vomit literally shot out of her mouth in a way reminiscent of the pie eating contest scene in Stand By Me for those of you who have seen it (video of it below in case you haven't). Vomit was exiting her mouth with such force it was a horizontal stream of formula and squash. I'm not exaggerating when I say it shot 4 or 5 feet out from her. Splat! James' legs were dripping with the stuff, the floor was freckled with a light orange liquid, the comforter was busily soaking it up, and the entire room stunk.

I could have freaked out that my daughter was sick. I could have been angry that everything (bed, floor, baby, parents) was now covered in squash flavored formula. I could have been angry that James wasn't cleaning faster. But was I? Nope. I laughed. The scene was just too funny to not laugh at. So....one by one, we got everything cleaned up. Floor was scrubbed, baby inserted into clean pjs and put to bed (successfully this time I'll have you know), furniture wiped off, new sheets and comforter put on our bed, and lastly, showers for both parents. Then I had to spray air freshener in our room because apparently squash infused formula holds quite a smell,....for a long time.

No harm no foul, but I really wish somehow we had a video of that event. It will be one of those things we threaten to tell her future boyfriends, but won't. Well,....maybe we will.