For someone who’s now well-versed at being a mom, Lisa has proven to have a bit of a low tolerance for things that are gross or disgusting.  It’s kind of contextual, though:  She can stand diapers that cause me to gag–my relatively good sense of smell puts me at a distinct disadvantage when our kid gets creative with what he puts in his diaper–but when Mathias pull stunts like he did in the car today, well, we have to consider ourselves lucky that Lisa’s able to keep her food down at all.

So, what happened today?  We were driving to the doctor’s office–the little one has been battling a snotty cold with an alternating fever for the past few days–when Mathias decided to do some impromptu spelunking.  Before Lisa could stop him, he pulled a large, multicolored booger out of his nose, studied it for a moment… And ate it.  Lisa started gagging, and then started wondering out loud if she should retrieve it or not, while I worked to repress laughter.  After a brief a moment of silence, Lisa set forth with another revelation: “Oh my god, he’s chewing on it.” Pause. “I’m going to throw up.”

I broke out laughing.  “Oh, it probably isn’t the only booger he’s eaten.”

“That’s so gross.”

“He doesn’t know what it is. To him, it’s just an interesting, salty snack.”

“Do you want me to throw up?”

“No.”

“Then stop!”

I stopped, as I suspected I was on track for dealing with more than enough puke for the day.  That suspicion would be proven later in the evening while cleaning the carseat in Lisa’s car, which Mathias had tossed chunks in a few days earlier.  Lisa had cleaned it off, but it still smelled, so I took it inside to give it a thorough cleaning.  Upon taking off the seat cushion I came across a still-liquid reservoir of milk-based vomit, and, well, it went downhill from there. Each time I thought I’d finally cleaned off the seat, I’d uncover something else.  You’d think something like a car seat would be built in a way to protect it from spills of pretty much any kind, but you’d be mistaken.

Ah, parenthood.  It’s kind of gross, but you get used to it.  And with that I’m off for a walk, hopefully so I can be home before our sick, cranky little kid wakes up again.

More later.