What fresh parenting hell is this?

If you smell something, it's our house. It reeks of puke. Poor Max got some sort of bug last night, perhaps that nasty rotovirus that's been making the rounds. Vomit is one of those unique forms of parent-child torture. Your child is miserable. You're miserable for your child. You're miserable about having to mop up all the puke and keep tossing in loads of laundry.

This time around, though, brought a new level of puke horror.

Max vomited right before our appointment with an endocrinologist. For the last couple of years, the pediatrician has been concerned that Max isn't growing as fast as he should be, and we've been taking him to the specialist for annual check-ups. I was actually excited to see her—yes, excited, because I knew Max had gained a whole lot of weight and a few inches.

After dinner, Max sat on the couch, groaning that he'd eaten too much for dinner. That seemed strange, since this boy can put away copious amounts of food. I told him to go hang out in the bathroom. So he was already in there when he puked.

Max felt better afterward, and I thought maybe he really had stuffed himself too much. So off to the pediatric endocrinologist we went. Max was chatty en route. When we got there, he slumped in his seat in the waiting room. Suddenly, he leapt up and made a beeline for the bathroom except he didn't make it and barfed on the carpet twice. Then he barfed some more in the bathroom and slipped.

I should have left then, except I figured it might be a good idea for a doctor to check him out. But karma was not with us. The nurse's thermometer didn't work. Then the blood pressure machine was acting up. I told her to skip it and ask the doctor to come in asap, as we needed to get home.

Although the pediatric endocrinologist didn't have any insights into his stomach situation, she was thrilled with the weight he'd put on: a whopping 32 pounds. But she noted that he hadn't inched up as much as she would have liked to see. Before we could discuss it, Max heaved again. I left and drove him home, stat. He was so miserable he didn't even want to pass by the fire station.

After Max went to sleep, I cleaned the bathroom, wondering all the while how puke had gotten into so many crevices. Then I heard coughing; Max had woken up and vomited. I changed all the bedding. He went back to sleep, woke up and puked a little more. I stroked his head, held a cup of water to his lips and tried to cheer him up. In the last week, Max has inexplicably decided that he would like to visit Las Vegas for his next birthday.

"Do you still want to go to Las Vegas for your birthday?" I asked.

"Yes!" he said, weakly.

And then: "Two weeks!" As in, he'd like to go for two weeks. I was glad to see a spark of the usual Max.

I fell asleep next to him, just another night in the trenches of parenthood.

Image source: Flickr/haanniee