Equal and opposite reactions

I knew this would be an eventful weekend, but in a well-planned, 100% awesome sort of way.  And then the universe must have read my #TBT post and decided what I really needed was more ill-advised adventure.

The plan was simple enough.  We were going to drive to Charlotte and go to a concert, while my in-laws babysat our kids and our nephew.  Not just any concert, but a Jump, Little Children concert. This was the concert of the decade, possibly a final-chance-in-a-lifetime sort of deal.

Jump, Little Children is an astoundingly talented and sexy band that broke up a decade ago. Upright bass, cello, accordions, oh my.  When they announced a short-lived reunion tour a small portion of the internet exploded with excitement.  Tickets sold out in minutes.

The morning before the show, Rowan was still coughing ’til he gagged, so I made him an appointment just to be sure, since we were going to be around our three month old nephew.  She did an RSV swab, and it was negative.  Whew.

Three hours later Rowan started throwing up.

Of. Freaking. Course.

When it was clear that this was legit vomit, not just cough-gagging, I cried.  Cried because my baby was sick, because the rest of us would be sick, and mostly because Jump.  Everyone was posting all of these pictures and memories from this little tour, and the idea that I wasn’t going to be a part of it felt like a final kick in the ass by this year that hasn’t been known for its kindness.

By the next morning he seemed to be feeling mostly better, but there was still no way that I could take him near our nephew.  Could I just… go?  By myself?  Where the hell is Steven when I need him?  Zach voiced the same concerns I had, me driving that late when I’m already so chronically sleep deprived, him getting sick while I was gone, or me getting sick.  But he understood why I had to go.

The internet enabled me, as they do.  Friends and other Jump fans alike told me to go, that I had to go, that I needed this.  Peer pressure, not just for drugs anymore.

Y’all, I seriously don’t remember the last time I was as purely happy as I was for those two hours.  I had a stupid grin plastered on my face the whole time.  It was so cool to see the rest of the fans.  Jump’s bread and butter was the college-aged crowd, now the 30s and early 40s crowd.  No big Xs on our hands anymore; worrying more about where to pump breast milk than how to score alcohol.  It’s so fun to be in a crowd of fans, everyone singing along. I wanted them to play every song they’ve ever written, and a few of them twice.  Songs that hadn’t meant that much to me all those years ago had new meaning after 15 years of new experiences.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

In this case, the reaction was vomit.  So. Much. Vomit.  I left for home around 11 pm.  At 1am Zach called me to say he was sick.  At some point he let me know that both he and Lorelei had puked.  Lovely. So I got home and stripped her bed, got things as sorted as I could, and finally got into bed just before 3am.  I spent the next four hours rubbing her back as she puked, getting her sips of water, nursing Rowan, and being projectile vomited on yet again by Rowan, who didn’t want out of the action just yet.  For those of you doing that math, that is approximately no sleep. My body just shrugged its shoulders, because really why should I even expect sleep anymore.

We hoped I had avoided it.  But then over the course of yesterday evening my stomach started grumbling.  I’ll spare the details, but there was a lot of sitting on the bathroom floor.

If you need me, I’ll be spending the rest of my week wiping every surface in my house with Lysol wipes, and doing 29304823940 loads of laundry.

And yet?  The concert?  Still totally worth it.