rites of passage

I've been tearing into this vomit stain all day. And all evening yesterday. This was Asher's first real, legit puke, a nasty rite of passage for that small boy. And cleaning it up was a motherhood rite of passage for me. (Did I mention that the boy threw up spaghetti? As if vomit weren't already hard enough to extract from carpet.)

Sometimes I feel like motherhood is just one rite-of-passage after another: first baby, first foods, first
steps, first words, first days of school, first kid at college, first wedding, first grandbaby. And somewhere in there is the first puke-cleanup. Thankfully this time I escaped one rite: sitting up with a flu-ridden babe all night. Asher slept straight through till morning and ate a full breakfast. So, go figure.

The stain still isn't out all the way. I've tried at least three cleaning tricks, and all of them have worked to a small degree. But those stairs are still grasping onto that creepy, faded, vomit-stained look that I'm not such a huge fan of. Tomorrow I'll tackle it again.

Rites of passage, people. Rites of passage.

(PS We completed another rite recently when we caught our first mouse. A mouse. And it was discriminatory in what it ate from the pantry. Like, it nibbled through the trail mix bag and ate everything but the raisins. In another life, I think we'd actually be friends.)