Learning the hard way

Corinne and Matthew begin the mornings with a cup of milk. It seems they can't function without it. So, I'll give them some milk so I can get breakfast ready and get the day started. Many times they will take their milk to various places in the house and play with toys until it's time to eat. Then it becomes a hide-and-seek game for me to find the milk. Yesterday I lost. I couldn't find Corinne's milk no matter where I looked. I searched her usual hiding places to no avail. Today, I finally won! I was feeding Nora in her room and found the milk cup hiding in a corner. Corinne just happened to be in the room and spied it the same time I did. Since I was a little busy and couldn't just jump right up, she started drinking the milk before I could stop her. I then assumed that the milk must still be fine since she didn't spit it out and continued to drink it. How wrong I was. I don't know why kids are so picky at mealtimes yet can manage to swallow rancid milk or bleach or all kinds of other chemicals without noticing the horrible taste. A few minutes later (I'm still feeding Nora), Corinne looks at me with a funny look and starts spewing white chunks everywhere. I grab the nearest burp cloth and hold it up to her to try to minimize the mess, but she shakes her head back and forth almost purposely to fling the chunks to the farthest corners of the room. Mealtime abruptly ends for Nora and I put her down on the ground and carry a crying Corinne at arms length down the hall and to the bathtub leaving a trail of chunks behind. I turn the water on and pour some toys into the tub to keep her happy while I do my best to clean up the foul-smelling mess. As if the vomit smell isn't bad enough, it is combined with the putrifying smell of rancid milk. The only smell worse is gangrene. Not even Matthew's poop, stored in his colon for days before being excreted, can top this odor. After several minutes of scrubbing and trying to find every last white chunk dispersed throughout the room, I now have to scrub down Corinne and try to make sure I get the smell off of her, which I don't think I fully did since I didn't wash her hair--I'll save that for tonight. I refuse to take pictures of or post pictures of this event. No one wants to see it. All of you mothers will have plenty of opportunities to see vomit first hand without having to see pictures of it from other children. We'll just call this whole experience a lesson learned with sour milk. May you never experience it!