Poor little sweetheart!

I'm grateful for so many things today.

Gratitude is a really good thing; I try to be grateful as often and as much as I can. But, here's the problem: it's hard to force yourself to be in a grateful mood when you're just not feeling it. So today, when I started feeling it in spite of all that's happened this morning, I gave a little cheer. Hooray for gratitude, showing up when least expected!

Today, I'm so grateful that we have a washer and dryer. I'm so grateful that they're right downstairs, and that it only takes a couple of hours to wash and dry a load. I'm grateful that we have electricity and gas to run them. I'm grateful that Katie didn't see me stealthily sneaking her Lambie into the washer. I'm grateful that we have toys and games and things to distract Katie while I sneak upstairs to vigorously scrub the carpet in her room with a soapy rag.

I'm eternally grateful that Katie is healthy and strong, and that she greeted me cheerfully with "Hi!" and "Morning!" when I went into her room this morning.

Last night, we put Katie down as usual. She still isn't over her little bout with separation anxiety, so she cried. She also has another cold, so she's snuffly and congested. She sounded just miserable. Her crying sounded so pitiful, we just couldn't bear doing nothing. We debated whether to go upstairs and sing her another round of lullabies. On one hand, going into Katie's room when she's crying usually makes her even madder when we leave. On the other hand, her crying sounded like her little heart was breaking. We caved - we went upstairs. We sang the songs. We rubbed her little back. We gave her lots of kisses. We put her back in her crib.

And the crying instantly became wailing. Wailing became screaming. Is there another word for screaming that's louder and more bloodcurdling than screaming? Well, it became that. We trudged downstairs, knowing we'd been incredibly stupid. We'd made it worse instead of better. We plopped down on the couch and waited for her to stop. She did stop, after about 25 minutes. 25 minutes was worse than we've had for a few nights, but certainly not the worst since separation anxiety started. We figured all was well, and went about our evening business of collapsing on the couch in front of the TV. (I was too tired to even eat ice cream.)

This morning, I knew something was wrong the second I opened the door. What's that smell? It didn't smell like stinky pee - I remembered I'd put Katie in a disposable diaper because I'm having some overnight stink issues with cloth diapers. So what could it be?

The answer was puke. Lots and lots of puke. It was on her sheet. It was on her sleep sack. It was on her Lambie. It was on her dust ruffle. It was on her carpet. It was on her onesie. It was on the rails of her crib. It was in her hair. It was freakin' everywhere, and she'd slept in it ALL NIGHT.

We feel like the worst parents EVER.

We immediately gave her a bath, including hair. (Which she hates.) We washed all of her bedding, including Lambie. Anthony had the unenviable task of getting the dried up mess out of the carpet.

Five hours later, after leaving the windows open with a fan on, it still smells barfy in her room. Everything has been washed, and everything still smells faintly of puke, including Katie herself. So, after her nap, everything is going to get a second wash. (Except Katie, she'll have to wait until this evening.)

So I am also grateful to live near Bed Bath & Beyond, where I picked up a Bissell Little Green steam cleaning machine this morning. We'll see if it works on puke - this may be another blog post in the making. I'm sure Katie's just going to LOVE the noise. She screams and says "ALL DONE!" when I bring out the Dyson, so I doubt she's going to be a fan of this. But it's got to be done.

Sigh.

I mean it, though, I really do feel grateful that we were able to get through this mess. I'm so grateful that Katie doesn't seem affected by her stinky night at all. She's as cheerful as ever, except for the fact that she has a pretty bad cold. Come to think of it, maybe she couldn't smell anything with her stuffy nose! That'd be an unexpected bonus.

Poor little angel!!!!!!!!!!!  :(  :(  :(