Wake-up call

I woke up this morning as the rosy fingers of dawn were just starting to creep into the room, although I was not happy to see any fingers of dawn, rosy or otherwise. In fact, I much prefer to arise at the much more acceptable but still painful hour of 7 o'clock, and any time that begins with a 5 is pretty much off limits unless I'm catching a flight to somewhere really, really warm with soft white sand. There is no soft white sand in my life today. Instead, there were the not-so-soft sounds of Cash retching and gagging at the foot of the bed.

I was pretty impressed with myself and my budding parenting instincts. Once, when I was about 8 years old, I barfed in the middle of the night off the side of my bed. I hadn't even gotten up to shuffle to the bathroom yet when my mom came upstairs to check on me. I'm still impressed that she responded so quickly to the sound of one kid puking on an entirely different floor from where she was sleeping. Even at the time, I remember asking her how on earth she heard me, and I think she gave me some answer about how moms can just DO that kind of stuff. Granted, the dog was sleeping about 8 feet away from my head, and the sound of an animal about to toss their kibble is not something that any pet owner (with rugs, anyway) takes lightly. Still, I bolted out of bed, and managed to lead him just far enough down the hall so that he could lose it on the hall runner. You know, the hall runner that we own, with the pretty colors and flowers on it. Good thing that I got him that far... it would have been terrible if he had barfed on the carpeting in the rest of the apartment, which we do NOT own, and is a speckled oatmeal-y color which I am pretty sure was specifically designed to disguise all sorts of horrifying things that happened to previous tenants.

Anyone who has had the pleasure of owning a dog knows that very little is more appetizing to canine-kind than a fresh, warm pile of barf. It was a time that began with a 5! It was only a very, very tiny pile of barf! He was done licking it up by the time that I came back with the paper towels! I was TIRED!

I guess my budding parenting skills need a little bit more time to fully blossom.