My wake up call came at 3:30 this morning. The baby was up, this time with a little drama, which required nursing, rocking, back rubbing. The funny thing is I kept hearing some sort of faint moaning/crying sound. I was thinking ghosts at first. I mean, naturally, right?

And then I thought there was something intuitive going on in my brain. There was a child close to me suffering somewhere. Something was up.

And then the baby was almost asleep on my shoulder when I heard the cry from the next room. You know the cry.

Like a siren in the night.

“OH NO! I THINK I’M GONNA THROW UP!”

Then the cough. You know the cough.

So I throw the baby in the crib and run into the boy’s room. Call the hubs to come get the now screaming baby.

I manage to get the boy out of bed and start steering him toward the bathroom, which is literally only about ten feet away. We can make it. We can make it, I think. We didn’t. But thankfully, OMG, so, so, thankfully, it was a splatter-free barf on the floor. Which is amazing since we have hardwood floors. It may have been from my pushing the boy’s head close to the floor to minimize splash. That was a tactic I learned from my dad. Thanks Dad!

Even though his groove was to shove my face into the toilet. Thanks Dad, for the face swirly while I barf!

**DISCLAIMER**All of this face shoving is done gently and lovingly.

Moving on.

Now I’m hoping that no one else gets this barf thing, whatever it is. I shared cole slaw with the boy last night, so I’m feeling really good about my chances. Not.

So by the time I cleaned everything up and we got the baby back to bed, which was no small task, I’m up. Uppity-up-UP! I’ve got work to do anyway, so it’s all good, although I know I’m going to want to die by noon. Aside from the work, let’s not fool ourselves. Kids never throw up just once. So why go to bed when I know I’m going to have to get up again? Go hard or go home.

As I’m working, I’m thinking about the day ahead. A trip to the store is a must when you have a sick kid. It’s just what’s done. I’m sure I can find something I need. What do I need? I take a mental inventory of my supplies. Crackers? Check. Soup? Yep. Bread? In the freezer. Applesauce? Got it and it’s even homemade! Ginger ale? Set! Wow, I rock with my supplies!

Then my mind wanders and I think about my freezer stash. Dried and canned goods supplies. My water stash. My first aid kit. My battery supplies. My candle stash. My paper for hands and butts. I’m set for an emergency. Not a large emergency mind you. But a couple of days of snow in, with a little power outage thrown in for fun.

Then I’m startled back to reality. “MOOOOOMMMM!” He threw up again.

I go to him. It’s a small amount this time. In a bucket. Holla. I go to get him some ginger ale. Because I have an excellent emergency stash!

why no ginger ale? MOM FAIL!

MOM FAIL!!! I’m out of ginger ale! I gave the boy the last of the ginger ale in the last round, it seems.

And so this pretty much sums up my week. And my life, really. The illusion of preparedness. A missing link. Quite possibly one of the most important links, too.

Whatevs. I made a mental note to hide a bottle of ginger ale in my emergency stash.