The One in Which Lexi Pukes & Can't Flush It

I woke up (sorta) this morning when Brooklyn crawled into my bed, crying. I couldn't force my eyes open, so I just sorta blindly reached over, patted Brooklyn, and promptly fell back into a deep sleep wherein I resumed my dream of chasing after a cute little black girl who was about five-years-old and had adorable pink bows in her hair. I was trying to catch her so I could give her the earrings I'd gotten for her. She and her mom got on a water taxi. I just missed it, so I walked on the water, really fast (the only way it works is if you go really fast) to catch them. I heard more crying. Who was crying? Oh, it must be Brooklyn. She's still crying about her dream. Poor baby. I reached over once again and made patting motions in her general vicinity while murmuring something about it being okay and it's just a bad dream. I cracked open an eye and Brooklyn came into focus. Brooklyn wasn't Brooklyn at all. She was Lexi.

"Lexi?" I croaked. "What's wrong?"

"I have a headache," she sobbed.

Uh-oh, I thought. Lexi gets migraines. If I catch them early enough, I can give her medicine, she'll go to sleep, and the headache will go away. Judging by her crying, it was too late for that. When I don't catch it soon enough, she throws up. Every time.

"Why didn't you wake me up and tell me, honey?" I asked as I hopped up to get her some Motrin. Too late. She was on her way to the bathroom to barf. Good morning.

Oh but it gets better. As I stayed far away from the bathroom poured Lexi some medicine, she flushed the toilet. Nothing. The barf just swirled around the bowl a bit, refusing to go wherever nasty toilet-stuff goes.

Lexi cried some more as another bout of nausea hit her. I told her to use the other bathroom while I quickly slammed the toilet lid closed. The lid fell off the toilet and clattered to the floor. I had just fixed the lid last night by smacking it a few times with my hammer. It seemed to be staying on, so I thought I'd done well. In fact, I fixed my slow-draining sink too! I was all, "Look at me! Oh yeah! Just call me Handy Manny! I rock! Woo hoo!" Until I tried to put the trap thing back in and may possibly, perhaps have snapped the whole darn closing mechanism thingy (that's the technical term) causing a projectile piece of errant plastic while doing it. But that's another story. Back to the barf.

I carefully, plopped the broken lid on the toilet and lifted the top off the tank. There was no water in it. Hmmm. I wiggled some pieces and hit it a few times. I bent down and made sure the water was turned on. Puzzling. Then I heard Lexi cry some more so I grabbed a diaper wipe, headed to the other bathroom and, without looking, threw the wipe towards her. "There, gag, you go, gag, sweetie, gag, gag." She grabbed the wipe and cried that that toilet wouldn't flush either.

I tried the faucet. Drip drip. No water anywhere. What the heck! I paid my water bill. I'm pretty sure I paid it. I had to have paid it! I left barfy-girl and ran to my desk where I pulled out my water bill. Yep, it had been paid. I called the city and left a message, inquiring as to what their problem was and why my child had no water with which to flush her vomit. (They never did call back.)

By this time, everyone was waking up. Well, everyone but Austin who I'm beginning to believe is a vampire. And, of course, everyone had to go to the bathroom.

"Hang on," I insisted. "Just let me throw on some clothes and I'll take you to the store so you can pee."

"Can I just go outside?" asked Jackson.

"I guess so," I relented, all the while cringing at the thought of him peeing outside in front of all the neighbors. As if they don't think we're weird enough already. I don't understand the attraction of peeing outside. I don't understand boys.

As I took a quick Polish shower (diaper wipes, perfume, and gum), Savannah dumped a bunch of ice into a bowl. "This will melt and then we'll have water," she beamed.

"Uh yeah. Or, ya know, we could just get some water while we're at the store," I countered. She wasn't amused.

So I headed outside to the car with the kids (except Lexi who was sleeping off her headache, and Austin who was avoiding sunlight so he didn't sparkle). On my door was this notice...

Yeah, thanks for the notice, guys!

But the good news is that the water came back on while I was out getting turtle supplies and telling Brooklyn that she couldn't have a pink dog. Lexi woke up headacheless. And someone was nice enough to flush all evidence of vomit before I got back home.