So I thought perhaps I'd take a minute to elaborate on the vomit-on-plate comment in my previous post. (And there goes half my audience.) While the dry-heave happens quite often at our house, the vomit-on-plate phenomenon is quite rare, which makes it all the more funny to me to recount.
Dry heaving? Oh, on any random day we have Jannika gagging and dry heaving on sandwich crust. Because it's crust. And she's four. And then there's Silas who will stuff an entire tortilla into his small pie-hole in order to give the illusion of a clean plate simply to secure first dibs on dessert over his sister... (and my kids' mouths are small; in fact, I'm not entirely certain they actually possess lips at all) ...which then turns into a gag-swallow-gag-swallow-gag session to complete the task. And then there's Rob, who will dry heave into the sink at the slightest whiff of bananas. Me? Well, I'm gagging a little typing this all out.
But an actual vomit-on-plate? Jannika earned the "I never have to eat mashed potatoes again" pin with a stellar performance once. I know I finally won my "dry heave" vs. "Banquet salisbury steak dinners" battle after an exceptional vomit-on-plate when I was like, oh, 17 years old. (It only took about 15 years of gagging to finally secure that Get Out of Jail Free card.)
And then there was Sunday. It probably wouldn't have been so bad except for the fact that the waiter caught me taking Jannika's temperature while we were waiting for our food. (Ugh, I have to explain away so much stuff to get this dang story out - yes, it was still from the swim lesson fever; yes, I know we were in a restaurant, but I thought I was being pretty sly with her all snuggled next to me in the booth, thermometer barely creeping out of the armpit of her shirt; yes, it was odd timing, but we were on our way to visit Rob's mom in the hospital, and I wanted to make totally sure that Jannika was in the clear; and yes, her temp came out somewhere around normal.) So, yes, I caught him looking at her armpit and then giving me a quizzical eye. And then, 15 minutes later, after she had chugged a little carton of chocolate milk and ate three mini chocolate chip pancakes, Jannika suddenly pulled a terrifically chocolaty vomit-on-plate.
Rob and I just looked at each other in panic - a quick, do something, she's YOUR daughter at this moment look on each of our faces. I considered bringing the plate to the bathroom. I even considered walking right out the front door with it and finding a trashcan somewhere. But Rob swooped in, the lifesaver that he is, and put his crumpled-to-a-golf-ball-size sandwich wrapper on it. To cover it, I suppose? It looked more like a whipped cream dollop on chocolate mousse, but hey, it was better than any idea I had conjured up. And suddenly, there was the waiter, and he whisked the plate away without a word. (Probably not his first vomit-on-plate experience, but that doesn't make it any better.) I tipped him well, even though he charged us for an extra iced tea.
And then he helped himself and ran our credit card for another dollar more than my total. Honest mistake? I think not.
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