Fully Sick

Being a parent is just extraordinary. You can be having a happy family trip to the produce market, with your usual carefully mapped out itinerary (park near the pet shop; proceed immediately to the far side of markets to the bestest seafood shop in Canberra and look at the little fishies in the tanks; get Dad-dad to sit down at cafe with little guy and snack; deposit grocery bag one of fruity vegetable type objects; eat slightly suspect chicken kebab with infant; obtain grocery bag two and deposit with Dad-dad and said infant; assist Dad-dad and infant to enormous "magic mushroom" (I shit you not!) playground area. Watch kid play. Take kid to pet shop, traditonal last point of shopping (conveniently near car by now) and meeting point of parents recently acquainted at Magic Mushroom) - ahh, but it still can go cruelly wrong.

After looking at rats, little tiny chickens, and lotsa fishies in the pet shop, you can check out the ridiculous mouse exercise paradises that - apparently - people will pay hundreds of dollars to buy. And, if your day's been like that, what you should do is look earnestly at your mama and hurl your guts up. And do it again. And again. If you're little, you probably don't have much experience of a good solid ralph, and you may need a lot of support. F'rinstance, if you just had your first serious big hurl ever in your life, what you would obviously do next is grab your mama and squeeze her for dear life. Maybe because her shirt didn't have any sick on it yet.

Can I just send some snaps here to the lovely teenager who brought bucket, mop and big roll of paper while still managing to find it all somewhat amusing. It seems that kids sicking are cuter than puppies after all.

This whole vile experience would have been much more entertaining had it not happened again ten hours later, about ten minutes after I left his bed, thinking he was asleep. Henry the octopus is looking much the worse for wear. Let's hope he survives the spin cycle.