Blue Buckets

I hate vomit. Now I know that no one is a huge fan of the substance but my dislike crosses over from the normal into the abnormal, phobic realm. When living at home I would go to a hotel for the night when my mother had a stomach virus rather than stay in the same house as someone vomiting. As a child I would go to a friend's house if someone at home was vomiting. Quite clearly I have major issues. It is all my brother's fault - it started when he vomited all over the backseat of the car (and me) because he became carsick but did not give any notice and then I had to sit in the backseat with his vomit for the rest of the ride home. Traumatized? Yep! So I am most certain that God has a sense of humor because one of the adorable little ones in my class has the most unfortunate tendancy to projectile vomit in class at least once a week. Did God not get my memo on vomiting? He has the worst reflux I have ever seen in a child and can "toss his cookies" (ok, toss his formula) like I have never witnessed before. After one recreation of the scene from The Exorcist we began to strategically place blue buckets around the classroom with the hopes of catching the vomit. I also brought in a change of clothes after just barely leaping out of the way (previous post covers this topic - I seem to write about vomit a lot...go figure). So today we all got to practice our catching abilities and I think we used every one of our blue buckets. Within the span of an hour the little guy vomited seven times. Um, I think that crossed over from reflux to just plain sick and I finally insisted he go home (three sets of clothes later). Major bonus points to the substitute assistant who ran across the room and caught an eruption in a smock and a bucket. I could not get from where I was to him in time. When he leaves I shall send a blue bucket on to his next teacher - it just seems like he should take one with him for the road.