The Size of His Fist

That is the size of a toddler’s stomach. The size of his clenched fist.

Why do I know this little tidbit of information? Because I looked it up online.

Why was I looking it up online? Oh, interesting little anecdote, actually ….

In my ongoing effort to avoid cooking whenever possible, we ate lunch at the food court in the mall today. Typical of our life currently, Jamie was in charge of buying the meals while I was in charge of child-wrangling and baby-whispering at a nearby table (glamour, thy name be Andra!). Clearly we need to rethink this division of duties because when Jamie returned, he was carrying a 500 mL carton of chocolate milk for Mason. Yes, that’s right … a 1/2 litre of chocolate milk for a 2.5 year old boy.

Realizing that my husband couldn’t possibly have meant for our son to drink all of this himself, I jumped in with mom-esq warnings to Mace. “Ok buddy, that’s a lot of milk! You’re going to have to share … Daddy’s going to help you drink it, ok?”. “Ok  mommy!” he cheerfully responded, smiling at the audacity of the thought of him being allowed to drink that entire large carton. “I will share with Daddy!”.

Perfect.

Confident that the warning would not go unheeded, I settled into my usual routine of taking a bite of food, then standing to bounce the fussing baby. Rinse and repeat. It makes it harder to stay on top of Mace’s meal-time antics, but I had a fully-competent adult sitting beside him so what could go wrong, right?

About 10 minutes into our meal I realized that Mace was pounding chocolate milk like it owed him money. I also realized that Jamie was not only aware of this, but encouraging it.

“Jamie, seriously … don’t let him drink all that ok? Its too big for him”.

“Andra, he’s getting” {quick pause to read the nutrition label on the back of the carton} “18 grams of protein from this. Its ok. You need to relax”. And it was left at that, because god knows I’m sick of being told I’m too uptight.  

5 minutes later, Mason told us he was full and we pronounced lunch time to be over. Jamie got up to clear the table, and Mace carefully climbed down from his seat. He then slowly walked around the table to me, started to whimper and said “Mommy, something’s wrong”.

I leaned in to make sure I heard him right. “Something’s wrong, babe? What’s wrong? Did you bump your leg?”

He whimpered again and said “Something’s wrong”.

And then proceeded to vomit the entire contents of his stomach all over himself, the food court floor and, oh yah, me.

Happy lunching, fellow mall-goers. Cheers!

Jamie came back just in time to catch the second-showing of “The Child Who Spewed Forth From His Mouth”, and actually had the gall to ask what happened. Even Mason, dripping and ill, looked at him like he was an idiot.

I’m happy to report that this all happened in full view of a table full of teens, who looked on aghast and horrified at the disaster that is my family. Let this be a lesson in abstinence, my hormonal friends, I telepathically instructed them while delicately wiping vomit off my pants. This, too, could happen to you.

Leaving the mall a while later, the smell of upchuck still lingering in our nostrils, I questioned Jamie on his reasoning behind feeding Mace so much chocolate milk. “I mean, that’s a lot to drink, Jamie. You know how small his stomach is, right?”. 

“Well, I’d definitely say it isn’t 500 mL. Probably closer to 400. Yes, definitely 400”.

Yup, that’s the guy I’m married to.

To get him back, later this evening Mason made sure to crawl all over Jamie while he was trying to dismantle Mace’s crib. And I didn’t even stop him.


So there.

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