Throwback

Last night and today have been throwback days to the days not so long ago.  It's amazing how quickly one adjusts and adapts.  I've barely written about the going's on's around here because it's become so normal to us that it feels like it must be mundane to everyone.  But then I step back and remember that not everyone feeds their kid through a hole in her stomach and I remember the days when I didn't even know what a gtube was.  A year ago.  Wow.  A year ago we were still in the midst of determining the why's of her failure to thrive diagnosis and I was in agony over the thought that I was starving my baby in spite of my best efforts.  One short, eternal year ago.

So today.  We have vomiting in the house again.  It's wild.  This baby vomited until it was normal and a non-issue with her pediatrician.  She vomited more when she was sick or had an infection or whatever.  But suddenly, mid-December, her little sphincter decided to shape up or something and - without any notice (she could've warned us!) - she stopped vomiting.  I carried around the vomit trays for a while and....she really stopped.  So I put them away.  The carseat cover rejoiced.  I held my breath for a while and then slowly exhaled.  Maybe this is to stay??

I've really been soaking in the glories of a life with more than laundry and vomit mop up.  We've done more grocery shopping during the day (because it's awesome with four kids!), the mornings are busy but no longer hyperventilatingly so, we've made it to church (although 'on time' has yet to be perfected), and we even managed a field trip to the science center last week.  The freedom is exhilarating!!!!!!!!  Admittedly, we still spend a lot of time in our condo/cage, but at least the option to go is usually there.  That, in itself, is worth gold.

But now we have a bug.  It started with kid #3 and moved down to kid #4.  Of course.  Elijah can't resist a grab and a jab and a poke and a suck at her pacifier.  He's neurotic about it.  Poor Annika.  Didn't have a wink of a chance.  So, in the middle of the night, she starts gagging and heaving like she used to do, and I'm out of practice so I stumble out of bed a little too late and grab at the stack of vomit trays which is stuck behind a big vacuum-sucked bag of blankets and I wheel to the left, swoop down and catch the last splash.  Better than nothing, but a fail.   Vomit on her bed and her sleepsack and her jammies and on her legs and my arms and a little bit in the vomit tray.  I'm ashamed of my performance.  After all those months of practice!!!  After two more sets of jammies, new sheets for my bed, (yeah, I missed again when I was washing my hands), some more throwing up in the sink, wiping of smelly skin and diaper changes, we land back in bed an hour later.  This really is so 2013.

But the thing that gets me is this.  I pull her out of that crib and I'm rocking her, holding her, telling her it's okay and directing her towards the tray - and that vomit smell brings me back, and the closeness of comforting her pulls at my heart, and somehow I weirdly miss it.  In my defense, I will say that milk vomit is sweeter and lighter than food vomit, but I wouldn't call it lovely or desirous and I wouldn't recommend it as a wearable scent (although I confess, I've done that too for longer than I'd like to admit on those days when it seemed pointless).  It's all very strange.  How can I miss a stench?  Or any of it?

Association.  That smell, it brings me back to the hospital and the heart and the early mornings and the tiny, confusing baby.  My bedroom, my house had that scent.  I'd open the door to pick up Annika from her nap and the scent greeted me first.  My car often carried it, and I carried it wadded up in plastic grocery bags in the diaper bag.  It became the scent of little Annika.  And as I held her last night, I missed my baby, because she's probably my last and now she's all grown up into a 14 month old who runs and says "uh-oh" and who sings "Les Mis" and who doesn't need Mommy quite so much.

I know I'm sentimental.  I hang on to mementos of past days for too long - like my 8th grade t-shirt and tie-dyed track shirt.  I'm not going to bottle any eu de vomit up for future whiffs.  But I guess it makes the sick days a little sweeter because they bring me back to the whirlwind days where my strength could not be my own, where my knowledge of God and love for Him grew, and to the feel of a tiny baby head nestling against my cheek.  And I am reminded of the hope and the prayers of all who uplifted our family.  My baby is gone.  She's been replaced by a sweet smelling toddler.  But, oh - the memory of. . .the knowledge of. . .the comfort of. . .and the assurance.. . .of sweetness and change rising forth from the stench.