my poor little exorcist baby

Last night, for the first time since the day I started taking the Lexapro three weeks ago, I was in the mood for a bit of love. I dropped hints left and right to Marty, and after we were sure the kids were asleep, we went to bed... about five minutes later, we hear Elizabeth's door creak open. (Thank goodness for rusty hinges!) She climbs up in our bed and Marty tries to tell her she needs to go back to her bed.

"But my stomach hurts!" she whines.

This is not a new phrase in our house. In fact, it probably comes a close second to, "Colby has something in his mouth!" Anytime we have any sort of green vegetable, meat, potato... anything that is not coated in sugar, her stomach hurts too much to eat. So really we can't be blamed for not paying enough attention to our baby. Really.

Marty turns on the light and is about to commence to getting Elizabeth out of our bed, but suddenly stops. "Natalie, look how pale she is..."

Then he says, "Elizabeth, does your stomach hurt like you are hungry, or like you are going to throw up?"

"Yes, " she replies, and commences to barfing all in my bed. Lovely. I am officially back out of the mood.

I get her to the bathroom, and she throws up three more times. I strip her down and get in the tub with her and she throws up twice more.

Meanwhile, Marty is stripping the bed and spraying Lysol like a madman. If Rumplestilskin had sprayed Lysol WHILE screaming about how he had been tricked, that is what Marty would have looked like. We may all still get fume poisoning.

We finally get a bed made on the living room floor with all of our old crappy blankets, and I layed with her until four o'clock this morning, watching Madagascar until the DVD started skipping, and Kim Possible after that. I called in late to work because I felt like I would die if I had to come in on two hours sleep.

Anyway, I am getting ready about 9:00am to come on into work and Elizabeth comes in the bedroom, white as a sheet, eyes blood red, and says "Can you drop me off at school on your way to work?" and I laughed and said "Honey, you can't go to school until you haven't thrown up for 24 hours. You just need to rest today. Eat some yummy noodle soup and watch lots of cartoons!"

To my horror, her pale, wan face starts to tremble and her eyes well up with huge pools of tears.

"But today they are picking the parts for "E-I-E-I-oops" she moans, sadly.

Oh dear heavens. Not today. They told her class on Monday that they have been picked to perform the Spring Musical, about a cow that is the only animal on the farm that can't sing. For some reason, my child went crazy over the part of the pig, and has spent the last two days practicing the song. ("You got to Ham it up! You got to Ham it up!!") I am 100% sure that they will not hold that part for her. In fact, since the music teacher is the one that picks the parts, I am 95% sure that it will be a case of "out of sight, out of mind" and she probably won't end up with a part at all.

These are the days that being a parent really sucks. Vomit and Heartache....