Put up or Throw up

High-speed projectiles of various bodily fluids are an on-the-job hazard of parenting, just one of many. I think Colorado even has a statute informing everyone that parenting is a hazardous activity, and that you undertake it at your own risk.

Or maybe that's skiing. But for either, it's a common sense issue that it can get messy, even dangerous. Toddlers are a particularly perilous incarnation of children. They can walk, run, say "NO!" till the cows come home and get into all kinds of stuff, but by and large they are not particularly eloquent speakers.

Riley speaks better than many, but she's still not up to full sentences. Take yesterday, for example. I would've really appreciated it if she could've said, "Hey Mom, just wanna let you know that in the spirit of Halloween, I'm doing a scene from your favorite horror movie. It's the one where Linda Blair honks demonic hurl all over the place. I'm giving you a 10-minute warning so that you can cover the interior of the car with plastic and have your vomit vac ready."

But she didn't. We were 45 minutes from home on the way back from Denver when she started crying. Then she called for Daddy shortly before she blew milk/yogurt chunks all over herself and everything else within 8 feet.

Fortunately I keep an extra outfit in the car as part of our haz-mat kit, but all the wet wipes in the diaper bag could not combat the smell of dairy puke. That was a long, long drive home. When we finally pulled into the driveway, my husband tackled the car while I bathed Riley and put her to bed. He disassembled the car seat and threw everything he could into the washing machine.

This morning I set about putting what should've been a floral-fresh seat back together. But the noxious fumes lingered. At first I thought it was my imagination. Maybe I was having olfactory flashbacks to the previous day's trauma. I felt my gag reflex flutter and steeled myself. I drew strength from what I consider to be the most inpsirational Patrick Swayze quote of all time, one from "Roadhouse": "Pain don't hurt." Spew don't smell, I told myself. (Incidentally, Riley's favorite Swazye quote is "Nobody puts Baby in the corner!")

I turned the seat over and over as I took shallow breaths through my mouth. Still nothing. It wasn't until I closed my eyes and started feeling around the various nooks and crannies that my fingers finally did the walking over the crusted remains of yesterday's yogurt. It very nearly incited me to produce a fresh batch. After copious amounts of two kinds of cleansers and scrubbing that would've made even Mommy Dearest proud, I finally conquered the chunder.

I reassembled the car seat and strapped it in only to find three extra pieces sitting on the front porch. This was almost as frustrating as my hunt for heave. That's because child safety products rank in the top five of parental perils; they're under the subcategory for "Some assembly required."

But hazards aside, it's still the best job I've ever had. Not that I enjoy being showered with excreta. But it's all relative. I used to shudder at the thought of nasty diapers and curtailed freedom. Now I pick out old puke with my bare hands. Now I escape for a couple of hours to catch a movie that came out four months ago by myself -- something I used to find almost as horrifying as other people's bodily fluids -- and am disappointed to find when I get home that my girl has already gone to bed.

Of all my grand adventures, mistakes, triumphs and near-death experiences, nothing has changed my world view as dramatically as motherhood. My world is now both bigger and smaller, scarier and more delightful, more constraining and more liberating. And just better. Much, much better, barf stains and all.