My Kid Just Puked In My Mouth. How Do I Return This Thing?

There is an important detail about parenting that people tend to leave out when they talk about it; it can be fucking disgusting. Disgusting things happen to you when you are a parent and you just have to suck it up, try not to puke, and pretend enduring these things is totally normal. Case in point – vomit in the mouth. Who besides a parent has ever experienced another human vomiting in their mouth? No one. It doesn’t happen. But it happens to parents. Yay, us!

My kid never throws up. She’s just turned one, but even when she was an infant she wasn’t one for spitting up. That’s why what transpired last weekend was shocking, to say the least. I heard her stirring in her crib on Sunday morning. She always wakes up with a smile on her face – it’s the cutest thing, ever. So of course I pick her up and fawn over her like any other sucker mom would. On this particular day, I held her over my head and gave her a big kiss on the mouth. She puked.

In my mouth.

Of course I handled it calmly. I dropped her in her crib and ran into the bathroom whilst gagging so I could spit it out. Then I screamed.

Nooo.

Why?

Nooo.

I looked in the mirror at my disgusted face and heard my daughter crying in the background. I don’t care what anyone says about parenthood – it’s a shit show.

Apart from all of the regular stuff you need to endure – the fatigue, the worry, the constant tasks – you’re also supposed to pretend that this stuff isn’t so unbelievably disgusting that you want to just say, I quit. No more parenting today. Someone just threw up in my mouth. Get me a Bloody Mary and leave me alone. But you can’t! You have to act like someone throwing up in your mouth or shitting in your hand is totally normal.

It’s not normal.

I never did get my Bloody Mary on Sunday. But man, I earned one.

(photo: Stokkete/ Shutterstock)