As the parents out there in blogosphere can attest, parenting is not for the squeamish. We deal with various effluvia from our children from day one.
One evening, my son Adam and I walked over to the dollar store near our home. This was right after I finished student-teaching-- we lived in an apartment that I hated and he loved. I hated it because it leaned like the bad guy's lair in the Batman show, I'd had to fight a campaign to rid it of mice and in order to get to it, I had to drive past an open drug market run by guys who carried guns. He loved it because it was big enough that he could ride his little firetruck around or take Henry Bunny, one of his favorite stuffed animals (the other was Nancy Bunny), out for a stroll.
As I finished shopping in the dollar store, getting ready to pay for my purchases, Adam told me that he wasn't feeling well. I stooped down to hug him and talk to him. Suddenly, he vomited all over the leather motorcycle jacket I was wearing. He had just eaten an hour or so before, so it was a voluminous, projectile vomit.
As I sat there, pondering the two block walk home carrying a sick kid, covered in throw-up, the store clerks came up to me with paper towels in hand. I will never talk badly about teenagers again- the two young hispanic guys helped me get cleaned up as I alternately apologized and thanked them. I wish I weren't so poor back then-- I would have brought by a pizza for their dinner some evening. It was one of the nicest things anyone's ever done for me, in the middle of a pretty bad time of my life.Again, those of you with kids share the experience, I'm sure, of your kids remembering weird moments of their very young childhood. This is one of Adam's. Once in a blue moon, he'll recall, out of nowhere-- "Dad, do you remember the time I threw up on you in the dollar store?"
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