Projectile Vomiting: vomiting that is sudden and so vigorous that the vomitus is forcefully projected to a distance
According to Merriam-Webster the first known use of the words Projectile Vomiting was in 1862. Makes you wonder what was happening on that day. On our day when the vomitus started flying we were eating dinner with friends. Thankfully they are all parents so there was only one projectile vomiter and that was Noah.
We were all sitting around the table and Noah and the other kids were playing. He may have started fussing a bit and that is why Erin picked him up; I am not really sure. The next thing I know he is throwing up what he had just eaten. Somehow he ended up in my lap along with a fair amount of puke, and then I was holding more puke in my hand while all of us just sat there. I was staring at my hand full of puke trying to figure out what I was going to do with it, and our friends were staring at me in disbelief. A year ago if something like this would have happened I would have had to beat feet out of the room so that I would not throw up myself; luckily for me and everyone else, it appears the puke switch is turned off when you become a parent. There was vomit everywhere, on our clothes, the floor, the table, my foot. So we stripped down Noah to his diaper, changed our clothes and cleaned up the mess. Then we carried on with our conversation and our dinner as if nothing had happened, until it happened again. We changed our clothes, cleaned up the mess and got Noah ready for a bath. Our friends, having had enough of the dinner show, left us with some brownies. After two more episodes of upchucking we decided it was time to call the doctor. We were told what to do and also that we were about the tenth call of the evening on this subject, an ominous statement. I hung up and relayed the information to Erin. Then I called our friends to spread the word that everyone may be tossing their cookies in the next couple of hours.
At a loss as to what to do we fell back on our nightly routine; we read a story, sang the goodnight song and soon Noah and I were rocking peacefully in the dark until he threw up again, covering both of us and shooting his pacifier across the floor. After another change of clothes and a check to make sure Mr. Monkey had missed the onslaught of regurgitated strawberry flavored Pedialyte, we were back to rocking in the dark. No more fluid, we decided, as clearly Noah’s stomach had not yet settled itself[i]. The rest of the night passed with relative calm, though Erin did not sleep much because she was so worried; her worrying is always compounded because of her profession. Noah woke up a few times, but only long enough to get a small drink and then go back to sleep.
[i]According to the doctor babies can only settle their stomachs on their own. Giving them fluid will not help; it will only make it worse. Giving a baby fluid right away is the biggest mistake parents make with a vomiting baby.
Quietly Making Noise 