I had almost forgotten about the third wave, and the two before it. We were all feeling great, to be honest. This fourth wave, it sort of snuck upon us. We didn’t see it coming, and boom, suddenly it was there, with a force that outweighed all previous waves.
Although there certainly are some parallels to be drawn, I’m not talking about the pandemic, or the number of covid cases here.
No, this is another episode in the stomach flu saga that posseses my son. (I’m sorry. I really am. For him. For you. But above all, for me…)
Since his third wave – a small wave, consisting of lukewarm tea – we have had a good 36 hours of happiness and joy. Rafa looked good yesterday. We even went for a short walk outside. He was back to his good old (young) self. Last night, ge slept like a baby. Sure, he woke up at 05.30am again, as he has been doing for a couple of mornings now. But he was not immediately trying to cover my face in stomach acid. Instead, he just woke up and left to go playing in the living room. Okay. Bye!
After a small breakfast of mostly oat milk and some pieces of apple, we were cautiously optimistic. We decided to observe for the next few hours, and if he would behave normally, we would drive to Tegernsee, to enjoy the sunny weather and mountain scenery. We have been covered in a thick and dense layer of fog for so long, I couldn’t even remember what sun looks like. (It was beautiful) At about 10.30am, we decide that Rafa is fit, we are fit, and we take the one hour drive to the mountains. We took a wonderful stroll through Rottach-Egern and surroundings. Rafa was asleep in his stroller for most of the duration of the walk. At 4.00pm we left to return to the fogged up town of Freising. This took longer than we had hoped, but the kids mostly slept, and at about 6.00pm we arrived at our house. I already prepped dinner (broccoli gorgonzola quiche) this morning, and we were all looking forward to it. We unpack the car, and put our stuff and the kids inside. After unpacking the stuff, making the table, and cutting the quiche, I wondered where was Rafa?
I found him on the guest bed in our home office room, his head nested on a pillow, in a puddle of unrecognizable muck, with some pristine pieces of mandarin. The sour smell of vomit filled the room. I quickly helped him get up out of his puddle, and this showed me that wave four was only just getting started. He quickly squirted out another beam of puke, only just missing me, but spray blasting my Monstera deliciosa plants in an acid drizzle. Holy fuck. How big of a stomach does this little kid have? However big or small it is, it is now empty. And so in a way we’re back to square one. I gave him a Coke treatment, skipped the quiche, played Duplo with him for a bit, brushed his teeth, and brought him to bed.
I sure hope that this was the last of it. While cleaning up, my own stomach twisted around, and I had to fight the urge to inspect the inside of our toilet bowl up close.
The quiche, you can imagine, did not taste as good as I had hoped. The air in my nostrils was contaminated. My stomach sensitive. I have had better dinner conditions.
Robin Heinen 