Carter is a stress puker -a trait that did not appear until he was 18 months old, but has become very much apart of our lives. For those weak of stomach, you may not want to read the rest of this, but good news, it's a happy ending.
We first discovered Carter's issue when he went to nursery at church. I was so excited the day he went in. A year and a half is a long time to entertain a kid through two hours of church meetings, so the fact that I could drop him off and actually listen to a lesson . . . it was like Christmas. He has always been really good about being left with babysitters or at friends' houses, so we had little worries when we dropped him off for his first time at nursery. He did just fine until the last 20 minutes or so and then had a complete melt down. I chalked it up to a great success . . . little did I know what I was in for. The next week, he went in crying and only lasted about 30 minutes. Then the next week it happened . . . after about 5 minutes, he tossed his cookies - or more accurately, his curdled milk.
We thought it was a fluke, he must be sick . . . until it happened the next week, and the week after that. From there we went into a total frenzy of trying to find ways to help him. We gave him a month off, we tried to play with him in the room when no one else was there, we tried to a couple of weeks of tough love- nothing worked. No matter what, it always ended with him being brought to us covered in puke.
With baby number 2 on the way, we knew we had to get him through this because there was no way I could handle two children at church (Isaac teaches a primary class for 8 year olds, so he can't really help). With a bit of planning, we discussed with the teachers a plan of action. We were going to drop him off and just let him puke his guts out, let the teachers clean him up and make him stay. He generally calmed down after his purge, so we thought that if he just got it out of his system, he would eventually get over the emotional trauma he suffered from being in there.
So the plan was set up. I left him with a change of clothes and supplies to help clean up. The week we decided to do this happened to be a week where there several visitors who either dropped their kids off in the nursery or were in there with their own kids. Their were 3 teachers in the nursery that week: a seasoned mother of 3, a friend of mine that knew Carter well, but being pregnant herself was prone to vomiting, and a newly married intern in NYC for the summer.
Sure enough, after about 5 minutes Carter puked and he puked big. My friend later told me of the details and I couldn't believe the havoc it caused. First of all, the girl holding Carter was the newly wed. She had to excuse herself and spent the better part of 15 minutes in the ladies room dry heaving. The parents in the room didn't know about Carter and his special issues, so they quickly packed up their children and left, apparently miffed that a mother would leave her sick child with others. Those parents went and told other parents, who quickly came to pick up their children. The other two teachers were left to try and keep the remaining kids out of the puke while they tried to clean it up themselves without contributing to the mess . . . but after they cleaned up Carter and everything else, Carter remained (as well as a disturbing smell, which anyone who walked in commented on). He was a bit fragile, but he made it through.
So with the glimmer of hope, we tried the same thing the next week, but this time packed a better rug cleaner along with commercial strength Fabreeze. But Carter didn't puke that week, or the week after that or the week after that. In fact, instead of crying uncontrollably as we walk down the hall towards the room, he runs with excitement.
What changed? I'm not quite sure, I just know that now, Carter can wear bow ties to church!
(PS for those wondering this gave me about a month of quiet Sundays before baby number 2 arrived- so much for my spirituality)
1 comment:
God bless the nursery leader........Granny S
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