Saturday's breakfast

Sunday afternoon i went rock huntin'. Whoa! Big fun! says you. OK i'll admit, its not base jumping but i enjoy it. It gets me out in the fresh air and the slow drive through the backroads with the windows down is just simply nostalgic. With all the rain we've had this Spring all the pastureland is beautifully green and the cattle are getting fat from the lush grass. I had to laugh as i passed a farmer who was on his tractor pulling a baler. He was a few hours into making hundreds of round bales and looked like he started getting bored with it around #2. His tractor crept slowly along with the baler doing all the frantic work while he sat in his air conditioned cabin, head in hand propped on his elbow, appearing as if he could drop off to Neverland at any moment, which he more than likely had done a time or two. Such is life on a Spring Sunday afternoon in Oklahoma. Even the cattle looked drowsy as they contentedly rolled their jaws on the juicy green wheat they had been allowed into. Yup, it was a lovely day. Oh yeah, the rock huntin'. Well, i've been building us a garden area in our front yard and i'm lining it with some local sandstone that i find in some of the higher elevations around here (higher elevations meaning 900' instead of 750). I've found a cache of good stuff in an open pasture area and this was my second trip back. Mr. Parks, the ranch owner gave me the go ahead to collect as long as i didn't tell his wife, who was wanting some for the same reason. They have lived on the same ranch in the same house for 56 years, its a nice place, thousands and thousands of acres with hundreds of cattle, simply beautiful even for south central Oklahoma. So i put a few hundred pounds of quarry into my Lexus mine cart and headed back to the hacienda. Fortunately, i still haven't seen any rattlesnakes or copperheads. i know they're around the rocky outcroppings i've been dancing around in my shorts and Teva's but, like i said, we haven't had the not-so-pleasurable meeting. Of course, i've never tried rattlesnake and always wanted to, i hear it tastes like chicken, and my chicken's pretty tasty. So back at the house i begin the process of unloading. The girls were next door playing and Jameson was inside with Mama. He hadn't been feeling well for most of a couple days. He seemed content just laying his head on her chest not really sleeping but not really awake. They were taking in a baseball game, i think it was the Rangers. Everything was quiet on the homefront when i arrived so i got a drink and went back out to continue my landscaping project. I had almost finished the outline of the garden when the front door implodes and Mama emerges holding Jameson and not quite screaming but very loudly pleads, "WILL YOU HELP ME?!!!" She was holding him oddly and slightly away from her body, and she was COVERED in puke. My initial reaction was, he's choking and can't breathe, which was not the case. He was fine, other than the puke that was covering him too...in his hair, nose, fingers, toes, eyelashes, ears, down his diaper...you get the picture. I'm not sure but i think Saturday's breakfast may have been in the mix. Mama didn't look much better, she had caught the full force of Mt. Saint Jameson's eruption in her neck and chest where he had only minutes before been laying in serene dormancy. It became instantly evident to us both that he was not dealing well with milk, since the fallout was covered with a thick cottage cheese looking substance...but then, she wasn't dealing too well with it either, pregnancy and puke aren't a happy couple. So i shed my work gloves as quickly as possible, took him from her, holding him in an oddly familiar fashion that i had just witnessed. As she just kinda stood there in disbelief and shock with her arms suspended and her hands in an open clinch. Now, let me say this for posterity's sake, we've had three children, therefore, i've seen The Queen in the glory of Motherhood, she's been peed on, pooped on, spit up on, snotted on...if it emerges from a cavity on a child's body, she's had it on her. But this...this was...can i use this term? This was horrific! (I really hate it when the talking heads use that term to describe some devastation) Her shirt was a...the best i can describe it...a veritable warzone. I have never NEVER seen that much puke come out of such a little body. I wasn't kidding about Saturday's breakfast, was that traces of Friday's supper too? In retrospect, i probably should have considered the garden hose, since the fountains of the Great Deep were still rumbling, but i rushed him into the royal washtub and proceeded to peel the clothing off of him while the water ran into the tub, floating the chunks. The reverberations from within seemed to subside and Mt. Saint Jameson returned to peace and began happily splashing in the rising warmth. Then enters The Queen, walking with that "Oh my gosh, i just peed my pants" walk...you know it, that arms agape, bowlegged kind of walk. She makes her way gingerly into the room where we were and begins as regally as possible to disrobe with constant utterances of "EEEeeeewwwww, ooooooohhhmygoooossshhh", and other descriptive terms not allowable since this is a General Audiences forum. Like i said, pregnancy and puke are not a happy couple and there were times when i thought the Queen was going to turn volcanic herself. Come to find out, there were definite rumblings but any eruptive tendencies were stifled by a greater power, The Queen's will.