Stupid

I am so stupid. Seriously. I should know by now that all three of my children are skilled communicators, and all I have to do to make my life run smoothly, is listen.

Obviously, Jack and Phoebalicious can speak clearly (and often way, way too much and definitely too loudly), with the occasional exception when Phoebs mangles her words into her own strange little version of pixie-English. But at least when she wants a "hair-listic" I know to grab the clips and hair elastics to put her hair in pig tails, when she asks for "peanut in a wrapper" I know that she wants a pitta bread with peanut butter for lunch, and when she asks "is this the right?", she's clarifying if the article of clothing she has just donned is on the right way or the correct foot. Simple, right?

And the Mouse has joined the ranks rapidly, jabbering away in babylish and punctuating her speech with pointing fingers and an almost-manic giggle. Being only 14 months old, her communication skills fall mainly in the body-language-and-gestures department, with a few discernible words thrown in. She has the basics such as Mum, Dad, and ta (with "ta" being her most used word, since she has learned that it will earn her the big-ticket items in the high chair). As we have discussed before, our pets have all been given breathy little names (all with exclamation marks on the end), and recently Maisie has begun calling a drink of water, "na". She calls for 'na' often, by pointing at her sippy cup, or grabbing for my drink, or shouting "NA!" repeatedly when the other kids are taking too much of my attention. Heaven forbid.

I was having trouble interpreting my baby's signals this afternoon. She was absolutely fine this morning, and at lunch time when we visited Pa. But by the time I went to a specialists' appointment mid-afternoon, she was starting to be clingy. We arrived home in time for Maisie to don her cranky-pants in earnest. She refused to eat the dinner her Daddy tried to feed her. I thought that she was exerting her independence, so I put some finger food on the high chair and sat her up. She threw it all on the floor and then cried when I looked sideways at her. She whinged and sooked and clung to my legs, so I diagnosed tiredness and put her in a growsuit. I was supposed to be tutoring tonight, so I thought I'd give her an early feed to send her to sleep before I left. The last thing I wanted to leave Christian with tonight was a tired, cranky baby.

As I said before, I am stupid. What my lovely baby was trying to tell me this afternoon and this evening, is that she felt rather poorly. Most likely, her tummy was hurting, and all she wanted was a cuddle and some water. Because five minutes before I needed to leave, and as Maisie was finishing her night feed, she vomited the biggest, wettest, lumpiest, most mammoth spew that I have ever seen. It went all over her sleeping bag and growsuit, all over my jumper, blouse, jeans, and everything underneath, until it pooled on the couch under my bottom. And it wasn't just the milk she had consumed, or her dinner - there were grapes in it. She ate grapes for morning tea. *shudder*

So, I didn't go tutoring. I tiptoed through the house, dripping chunks of vommy on the floor, and peeled off my stinking clothes. Maisie and I showered together...actually, she cried, and I scrubbed, and still she stunk like spew when we emerged. And then I fed her to sleep again, and thought. If I wasn't stupid, and if I listened to my little girl when she was clearly trying to tell me something, then I wouldn't have been deluged in vomit, and had an enormous mess to clean up, and felt rather vommy myself. So I only have myself to blame. *sigh* I really need to learn how to communicate more effectively. Perhaps if I point and grunt at the pile of spewy clothes on the bathroom floor, someone will know what I mean, and do it for me? No. Perhaps not.