Code Vom!

We had a Code Vom in our house last night. A pitiful, white faced Cormac came into our bedroom about 11 o'clock, having just upchucked the 2 large bowls of chilli he ate for dinner, all over his bed. Bright orange chilli on clean, white sheets...kidney beans were in abundance... a fish slice was utilised.... don't even ask. Unbelievably though, even amid such a graphic scene, his pyjamas remained unscathed.
The episode reminded me of one of the first posts that I ever wrote. It was about another code Vom last summer, which coincidentally, also involved Cormac. It's called 'Scooping up Vomit with a Spoon' and here it is....

Having five children means many birthday parties, in-house and elsewhere, which also means multiple opportunities for overindulging in cake, sweets and the like. The older three boys, in particular, will often enjoy unlimited quantities, (read-greedy!), and occasionally this results in feeling, and subsequently being sick later in the evening. When real illness is also factored in, this means there are numerous 'opportunities' in any given year for me to hone my vomit cleaning skills. I've seen it all in my time- war zone type scenarios (I'm going in-cover me!), involving walls, curtains, carpets and sheets (mentioning no names-J!), head to toe full immersion including, but not limited to, hair, ears, eyes etc, baby style projectile vomit and any combination in between. There aren't many things in this life that I'm an expert in, but let me tell you , I am second to none in this field. (What a winning addition to my CV-'Fully proficient and experienced in all aspects of the vomit sanitation process').
Yesterday was Anna's 12th birthday, and after a busy full day at the park, we had a barbeque followed by icecream with sweets and chocolate sauce followed by large slices of chocolate cake. Cormac, in particular enjoyed the aforementioned chocolate cake.....and there's your clue!
At about 11pm, as I was FINALLY sitting down reading the paper, I heard a pitiful little 'Mammy!' Now, there are many times one might hear this during the course of an evening-a request for water, another story, an extra cuddle but I knew this was none of the above and I took off up the stairs as fast as I could (Code VOM!!!). Poor Cormac was sitting up in bed, holding his stomach , and before I could do anything, he leaned forward ,over the edge of the bed and produced a perfect cow pat of puke on the floor.
(Sidenote- This is typical Cormac-he's my naturally neat boy, the only one who can get two days out of his clothes, the only one who doesn't end up with long streaks of tomato ketchup or yogurt down his front on a regular basis. He would never turn a full 360 mid puke, spraying everything and anything in sight, (still no names-J!).)
Apart from a tiny bit on the quilt, it was completely contained in that one area-not even touching his pyjamas. In other words, pretty much a best case scenario, second only to making it to the porcelain. After quickly assessing the situation, I got to work. First was dealing with Cormac. When the process is a 2 parent job, as it usually is, one seamlessly deals with child sanitation, the other with room sanitation. I was flying solo last night, but thankfully, because of Cormac's considerate barfing technique, once he was set up with a basin in front of him and a glass of water beside him, I was able to crack on with the room clean up.
Step 1 involved scooping up the vomit with a large spoon. Can I just say at this point that there are few things that ground one more than being on your hands and knees, spooning vomit into a plastic bag? ( I attempted to banish any self pity by considering how the situation could be worsened- If it were three o'clock in the morning this would be worse, if I had a hangover this would be MUCH worse, if it were three o'clock in the morning AND I had a hangover..and so on.) Next, I attacked the offending area with hot soapy water followed by liberal amounts of Febreze. A few minutes later, Cormac was tucked up in a fresh bed in a vomit free room and I'm not ashamed to admit that I had a more than a small amount of satisfaction for a job well done. Sad but true-Ask any Vomit Sanitation Specialist.

Hotels with Kids...a whole new world!

going on my holliers...

 I think that it would be fair to say that our children don't get to stay in hotels very often. The first time was particularly memorable- we stayed in a Premier Inn somewhere in England last year, while attending a relative's birthday party. With officially waaaay too much family going on, for the so called 'family' room, getting the crew past hotel reception was our first challenge. So after much discussion, we decided to 'divide and conquer', as in 'stay in the car, gimme 5 minutes, then bring in the rest of them', and it really worked a treat.
 That night the party was great craic, although unfortunately the birthday girl didn't actually make it to her own celebrations- she got waylaid at home by her daughter, who was inconveniently delivering a 7th child in her bath at the time. I suppose you can't just pop your head around the bathroom door at that point and say 'That's us now, love. We're off. Don't wait up!'
Later on at the party, just after the mini pizzas, it was announced that baby Wulfric had been born, (entirely naturally), weighing in at an eye watering sixteen pounds! Well, what could we partygoers do only wet his (very large) head?
 Things weren't so upbeat in our overcrowded hotel room later on though-stuffed full of candy floss, cake and coke, a groaning Rory sat up abruptly and hurled all over a sleeping Cormac. At some level, I obviously registered 'Code Barf', and leapt out of bed, completely disorientated, stubbing my toe hard on the travel cot right beside me. The jolt and my subsequent screams of pain, unsurprisingly woke six month old Luke from his slumbers, and as you can imagine, it was all fun and games from there.
Take it from me, there's few things more sobering than cleaning up vomit drenched boys at 3am, and there's few things worse, than nursing the emerging hangover, in that same small airless hotel room, heavy with the lingering aroma of fresh gack.

Close...

Later at breakfast, the boys had bounced right back, (unlike us!), and were busy testing the limits of the 'bottomless breakfast' hotel deal.  Well used to heavy sanctions at home, they made it their sole mission to devour the hotel's entire supply of cocoa pops. Jude alone, managed 6 full bowls. Their poor cousin, arriving after the scavengers onslaught, was understandably gutted to be left with the pitiful choice of Weetabix or cornflakes.
 Our second brief hotel stay was just a few months ago for a family wedding. It should be said that this time, it was in a MUCH fancier hotel, and we had wisely opted for adjoining rooms. The kids were beside themselves with all the freebies- Easter eggs, bottles of water, biscuits, toiletries...there was even a toilet bag with a cuddly penguin and a toothbrush in it for them. But, clearly unused to the concept of hotels in general, and especially those of the 5* variety, the younger two naturally assumed that anything not nailed down was indeed theirs for the taking. In fact, I discovered Rory stashing 'this lovely book', (The Holy Bible), into his case, while Cormac was found squeezing the origami swan shaped towels into his. It seemed that everything in the room was fair game- Rory actually pondered aloud whether the very lamps would match our living room...and whether he could possibly fit them into his case.
Now I've whittered on enough, and I never even got to tell you about last weekend, when my parents, siblings, spouses and our collective twelve children descended en masse to a hotel in Donegal. I'll save that wee gem for another time, but in the meantime, here's a picture taken en route from the front of the car. All I can say is, thank God for in -car DVD players.

Peace, perfect peace.

 And no, they weren't watching Chain Saw Massacre- it was a Disney flick, about a dog that runs away or something. Who gives a shit? Because what you see there my friends, is 2 hours of blissfully quiet car time...just before two whole days of fabulous madness. Happy Monday Amigosxx .