The Incredible Exploding Baby

Rosie has had a cold for a couple of weeks now. It's not too bad though sleeping next to her is like sleeping with a sleestack in the room. The only minor problem is that she keeps exploding.

Because she's making so much mucous at the moment her milk doesn't go down very well when she eats, so she'll eat two ounces and spit up one. It's really bad when she eats six ounces and and spits up four. And she doesn't just spit them up, they come flying out of her with great force. I made the mistake of holding a cloth a few inches in front of her mouth while burping her today. I thought I might be able to catch the vomit and save myself some laundry but it was like putting a spoon under a tap. Regurgitated milk went everywhere.

A few days ago we all went out to lunch in a nice Italian restaurant down the road. It was J's last day of vacation and we wanted to do something special. I had to take Rosie to the loo to change her nappy and Tobes decided to tag along. As I was folding up her changing mat Rosie exploded milk all over the bathroom. She managed to throw up in both sinks and into her changing bag which was sitting on a table in between them. She also got a fair amount of vomit on the floor and herself. Tobes thought this was hilarious.

Because she had thrown up into the changing bag she actually got vomit on her clean change of clothes so I had to decide which clothes were cleaner and put together a reasonably clean outfit. As all of this was going on women were coming in and out of the loos. One older lady stopped to say "I don't miss that stage. My daughter is sixteen and so much easier than a baby now.' She then went to let J know that I would be a while. A heavily pregnant lady also stopped to chat. She was 6 weeks away from having her first baby and in that blissful hopeful stage. I tried to assure her that it wasn't always this crazy but she was already making goo-goo eyes at Rosie, vomit and all. Poor lady. I wonder how she's going to be doing about 8 weeks from now.

Unfortunately, Rosie doesn't just explode from the top end. She's been doing the most shocking poos too. Her tummy gets full of mucous and it all comes firing out into her nappy at top speed. Her nappy can't always take the strain and the excess poo either shoots up her back or, even worse, up her front. The first time it happened we were out (of course) and I had to just throw her outfit away. Even in a sealed plastic bag there was no way I could tote it around in the nappy bag until we got home. It was disgusting.

Yesterday was Rosie's piece de resistance. We had some friends over and just as they were leaving I heard the unmistakable sound of poo being fired into a nappy at breakneak speed. Rosie was in her bouncy chair and in the time it took me to walk the friends to the door and say goodbye the poo had managed to work its way up Rosie's back and leak out the side of her nappy. By the time I got back to her she was basically sitting in a sling of poo. She even had the stuff in her hair, for God's sake! I wiped her down as best I could and put her straight into a bath. The clothes, blanket and chair cover all went into a hot wash though I probably would've been better off burning them.

Hope she gets over this cold soon. I don't think the washer and dryer can take much more abuse.