Let it Out

Many years ago, in a far away land, in a long since failed relationship, a young university graduate Sarabeth went on a month long journey to Greece with her then boyfriend.  Despite this being the worst relationship of my life*, we actually got along fairly well on this trip.  I blame this on a pseudo-Stockholm Syndrome caused by the fact that I didn't speak more than about 10 words of Greek and was desperately dependent on him in order to survive.

On our last day in Athens we slid the keys to the apartment we were staying at under the door and headed to the airport.  After an hour in line we were informed that we had been bumped from our flight and would have to take another flight home, late the next night.  I was upset, and a bit panicked that we had very little money left and no place to stay for the night, but tried to stay calm and positive.  We had credit cards for an emergency or could wait at the airport.  It would be okay. While we waited on standby I called my parents to prepare them for the fact that I would likely not be making it home for close to another 48 hours.

The instant my father picked up the phone I burst into tears.  I couldn't help myself.  It just happened naturally.  In the end, we managed to make it on to our original flight.** 

Miss Molly, In her mom's shoes.

It seems I experience something very similar to my telephone break down any time one of the minions fall ill.  On Friday night Chris and I were sitting down to watch some television.  For about twenty minutes the baby monitor went crazy.  Molly has been recovering from a nasty cough, one that sometimes triggers her gag reflex.  Much to Chris's chagrin, I didn't wait until the commercial break to go and see if Molly was okay, I rushed upstairs to her side, where she immediately puked all over me and the bathroom floor.  It was as if she was waiting for me to get there to puke.  Chris is convinced that I am a trigger to the children throwing up, a figurative gag reflex.

At first I laughed, because that's ridiculous.  Then I thought about it, and the number of times that I have been puked on over the past 19 months.  It's insane.  If I had a quarter for every time I've been puked on by one of my children I'd probably have enough money to buy a decent bottle of wine.***

I think that a lot of this ties into comfort with your parent, because you know they are there - you can let it out.  Why are children better behaved for a sitter or the grandparents than they are for their own parents?  My mom calls this anomaly The Hansel and Gretel effect.  I like to think that it's comfort rather than the threat of being eaten by a cannibalistic witch.  Chris rarely gets puked on....and he comforts them all the time, maybe it's a mama thing or maybe I'm just lucky.

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*A relationship akin to Kay and Michael Corleone.
**Apparently he made Olympic Air an offer that they couldn't refuse.
***Decent bottle is subjective I suppose.