Aitch is a pretty healthy kid. Even when he’s sick, he’s healthy. I have many conversations with the doctor’s office that go like this:

Me: I think I need to make an appointment for my two-year-old. He’s really crabby and irritable and whiny and wants to be held all the time. I think he must be really sick.

Nurse: Does he have a fever?

Me: No

Nurse: Runny nose?

Me: A little.

Nurse: Chest congestion?

Me: No.

Nurse: Loss of appetite?

Me: (Looking at child eating pretzels) Hmm, not really.

Nurse: Is he pulling his ear?

Me: No.

Nurse: Does he have any kind of a rash?

Me: Other than where the dog licked him trying to get a pretzel from him? No.

Nurse: (exasperated) So you have a two-year-old who’s whiny and irritable? (Thinking: Stop the presses, lady.)

Yesterday, though, after days of Aitch being sub-par but symptom-free, we finally got a sign: He threw up. Three times, each time while Daddy was holding him.

We’re not big pukers in this family. The concept of a delicate stomach is quite foreign to us. I’ve eaten my way through multiple parasitic infestations while I was in the Peace Corps, and Husband - Rappacini’s son - thrives on a steady diet of nicotine, coffee, wine, and red meat. Aitch has never thrown up before, other than a little spit-up as a baby. So we were all rather nonplussed by this turn of events.

The nice thing about Aitch being sick, though, is that he wants to be cuddled. Once it became apparent that he was ill and we figured out that all that whininess could be circumvented by holding him constantly, we settled in and began to enjoy it. We continued to whine, though, about the fact that little billable work was getting done.

When it seemed like Aitch was perking up, I even took him downtown in the Ergo carrier so he could get some fresh air and snuggle at the same time. Although I was pretty enthusiastic about the Ergo when I first got it, I haven’t been able to use it that much. Loading up the baby is pretty much a two-person job, which is not always convenient. It’s hard to interact with the baby, too, and passers-by often assume that I’m talking to myself when they can’t see I’ve got a child on my back. Most important, though, Aitch doesn’t like it. But yesterday, for the first time ever, he was content to ride in it without a constant refrain of “Downy, downy.”

And he — good, good boy — waited until AFTER we returned home to vomit for the third and final time. I don’t know what I would have done, blocks from home, with a hysterical baby and a pint of cold puke down my back.