I know you’re probably thinking this is a very bad topic for a story.  It might just be. My husband always said he was going to name a horse, Puke, poor horse. Anyway, right before my alarm went off this morning my son, Dillon, came stomping into my room, upset because Maggie (family dog) puked on his bedroom rug.  Of course, Dillon blames the incident on Maggie eating something that Trey left on the floor of the bedroom. (candy wrappers?) I have seen her eat a wooden chopstick before with no repercussions – well, any repercussions she had were not seen by me!  My job this morning was to dig out a new roll of paper towels. (Isn’t it amazing how “someone” must have used the last one, but “no one” can grab a new roll?) I clean up after Maggie more than the initial agreed upon amount, so in this instance: not my problem!

My hubby is pretty useless in the puking department. He is what I call a copycat puker. As in if someone else has puked nearby, or he hears someone puking. He starts to gag and proceed to puke if he remains in the vicinity. (Haha. Like in the movie, The Replacements.) However, it is the fastest known way to get him out of bed at any time of the night. Jade and Sabrina, our two girls, always said if they could get an alarm for him with the sound of someone puking, he would be up instantly and never sleep through his alarm. Now days I’m sure we could find him one for his phone! (The second best way to get him out of bed was a prank the girls pulled on him years ago. They ran screaming into his room “Dad! The cows are out!” Which had him flying out of bed and sprinting to the kitchen window to see how bad the situation was…haha… and then the girls said, “the cows are outside!” This worked on their cousins, too!)

Off track I am. Lol. The dog’s messes are not my problem unless I am the only one home with Maggie. I’ve spent almost the last three decades….(that can’t possibly be right) cleaning up puke of all kinds.

Baby puke. That is probably the easiest kind, except for if the baby is formula fed. Ugh. It smells like regurgitated milk replacer for calves!

Toddler puke. This is the kind where the child doesn’t know what’s happening or where it’s coming from, and  you can’t tell who is more shocked, the child or the parents! Dalton had so many food allergies as a toddler. He would puke while eating lunch at daycare (eggs took us a little bit to figure out) and eventually it didn’t even phase the daycare kids. They’d say “Tonya! Dalton puked again!” and keep right on eating! It didn’t seem to bother him either!

Night time puking. Where the child sits up and either pukes all over their blankets (by far the easiest to clean up than the next…) or where they just lean over the edge of the bed and proceed to puke all over the carpet. Ugh. Just ugh. Out of 5 kids, Dillon was really good at doing this. If I saw one of them look a little green, say their stomach hurt, or seemed “gaggy” (is that even a word?), I’d give them an ice cream bucket and tell them to keep it close for a while. The kids never took it with them if they were the one sleeping on the top bunk. Why, I don’t know. Fear of falling down the ladder while trying to get down fast enough, should give the bucket a gold star of approval for usage! Idk Luckily, (knock on wood), no one has puked off the top bunk. Now that would be a story all on it’s own! (Can you imagine the mess that would make? Like a six foot splat!)

Continuing on, how about the stop and start while running puking? It’s the kid that’s running to the bathroom, but stops to puke every so many feet (this definitely was Trey when he was little). I’m glad I don’t have excessively pukey kids! Lol. 

My favorite (looking back at it the incident I can finally laugh), the child (not my child, but at my house) was actually in the bathroom and puked all over the bathroom rug, in the sink, in the tub, on the wall, and all over the toilet. I kid you not! The child went back to bed without saying anything! I wish I had known about it before my daughter got up to get ready for work. Let’s just say- Jade was NOT happy! I was not happy either.

I really hope none of you are eating while reading this. If so, I apologize. (I tend to read while eating because that’s when I fit it in!) I am enjoying my morning coffee, finally, while writing. My husband would find this topic appalling while eating. However, he will talk about prolapsed cows, abscesses on cattle and how he drained it and what the drainage looked like, or banded bulls that “what was to fall off didn’t” and got infected. Made anyone within 500 feet of the feedlot building turn green and save their business for another day! (That still makes my stomach roll just remembering the incident.) All this and more to discuss while eating, but can not talk about puking! Lol I’m not sure how I was able to clean the puke up every time and not get sick myself. Oh, I know. Cause I HAD to. Cause there was no one else that was going to do it for me. (I think James had to do it once in all these years because I was not home at the time.) So, kudos to all you parents out there that are the “puke cleaner uppers” for their