Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Sometimes You Just Have to Laugh...Seriously

I am thankful for the fact that my children are very rarely sick.  In fact, they have never had a sick visit to the doctor or taken any medicine.  We are very proactive with our health and especially take care to always take the supplements we love every single day.  As a result, I really don't have much experience with sick children.  I haven't even known what it is like to clean up vomit.  That is until tonight...

As I was getting the children ready for bed my younger one started coughing.  I am not sure what made her cough, but then she began to vomit (forgive the grossness, but this gets better).  I tend to be excitable, and my older daughter usually follows me down that path if I am not careful.  Well, I excitably yelled for her to get me a towel quickly because her sister was throwing up.  I guess I scared her in all of my excitement, the older one that is, because she started to cry and just stand in one place. 

This was not helpful.

I appologized for scaring her, but reminded her that I desperately needed a towel from the bathroom, and she was the only one who could help me (My husband happened to be out with a friend - I can't wait to tell him the story!).  Meanwhile the little one threw up some more. 

Well in comes my older daughter to the rescue with the towel and the towel bar from the bathroom in hand.  Excitable Me says, "Hurry, please!"  Scared Daughter says, "OK!"  Then she doesn't stop in time and slips right into the vomit on the floor!  She was horrified and just remained in the same position in which she fell. 

What did I do?  I just started laughing.  It was not funny.  But it was.  I was so disgusted, but all I could do was laugh as both of my little girls cried - one in horror and one I guess because she just threw up. 

Then I wanted to cry as I cleaned everything up, bathed them, cleaned up more, and thought about how crazy this just was.

Hopefully we will have no more of that going on around here.

After the whole thing died down, I began to think about how much of a stress reliever laughter can be.  Sometimes we just really need to laugh.  Of course, sometimes it could be better saved for a latter time when it is more appropriate, but other times even in the thick of it we just need to let ourselves laugh.  In fact, I am still laughing, and I am sure I will be laughing when I tell my husband about all of this when he comes home.  Thank you, Lord, for laughter!  How would we make it through this life without it?

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under Heaven...a time to weep and a time to laugh..." (Ecclesiastes 4:1, 4a).

1 comment:

Brandy Vencel said...

Goodness, girl, what. a. mess! :) I am glad you survived. We haven't had many stomach issues, either, so whenever it DOES happen, I feel completely shocked.

I'm glad you have learned to laugh about these things. Much better than the alternative of taking our live too seriously! :)