A weary night.

Mark, the man, the myth, the legend. The boy I love.

It was 12;30 a.m. on Saturday night/Sunday morning, and I had just finished the final touches on my Relief Society lesson. (Least you think I procrastinated, for the record I did not. I read the lesson a week ago, pondered, re-read it Friday night, pondered it all day Saturday, and finally put my thoughts to paper in the quiet of the night after the children were in bed.) The quiet of my night was interrupted by the wailing of a little boy. He had just thrown up and was upset. I went upstairs to survey the damage, only to find the cream color carpet in my bedroom, was now covered in a lovely shade of brown, I will spare you any further details. My son was also covered in this lovely shade of brown, crying and demanding to be cleaned off. To the bathroom we marched, stripped off clothes, ran a nice hot bath.

While Mark was soaking in the tub I returned to my bedroom, to see what it was going to take to correct the wrongs of a food he ate that apparently did not agree with him. I removed much of the material, again I will spare you the details, and determined the carpet cleaner was in order. Now this was bit of a quandary for me. You see Katie sleeps in the alcove right off my bedroom, and I feared that using the carpet cleaner, which is about 3x as loud as the vacuum would wake her up and then I would have two of my three children howling. Although I had to admit Mark had been really carrying on and that did not seem to disturb her.

Well clearly I could not allow a brown substance to harden in my carpet, then any chance of returning my carpet to its original cream shade would be lost. Out came the carpet cleaner, up came the substance, asleep stayed Katie. (Proof that you are blessed for fulfilling your calling!)

Mark emerged from the bath a clean boy, with clean clothes and ready to return to bed, although distraught that he had soiled his blanket and would be sleeping blanketless for the remainder of the night. (Which is why I am up typing this post, yes its laundry. I have to at least get his blanket to the dryer before I retire)

As I laid next to Mark and tried to reassure him that he was going to be all right, he was very loving and thankful for returning him to a clean state. He then asked if he would have to go to the hospital and began to cry. I chuckled and told him "no" he had just caught a virus and assured him it would not require a visit to the hospital. Then I recalled that it had been a year since a violent regurgitation attack he had after falling and hitting his head and suffering a concussion, which did result in a hospital visit. I asked Mark if he remembered going to the hospital, and he said "yes" and started to cry, telling me that when you throw up you have to go to the hospital. I looked him in the eyes and said "Mark, you go to the hospital when you hit your head, not when you throw up." He replied, "Thank you mommy, I love you" and with that off to sleep he went, knowing that at least for tonight, no trips to the hospital were awaiting.