Throw Up and Motherhood

Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to essentials. ~Meryl Streep

This winter I signed up for a Nia class on Tuesday mornings at my gym. A friend had originally recommended it to me, insisting I try a class at her gym (as I wrote here). I enjoyed it so much that I decided to make it part of my weekly exercise routine.

Unfortunately, in a brilliant oversight by the gym, the class starts at 8:30 and the gym childcare starts at 8:45. Rather than decide not to take the class, I begged the dance teacher to let Noni sit in and watch the class for the first fifteen minutes each week. She agreed that it wasn't a problem as long as Noni was quiet. And for the first class she was as quiet as could be until the fifteen minutes passed and then, not wanting to leave, she started screaming "NOOOO!" when I tried to take her to the childcare. Since she had spent the first fifteen minutes sitting so quietly and playing with her mini Disney princesses, I figured it shouldn't be a problem just to keep her there for the next hour. I asked the teacher at the end of the class if that would be alright in the future as well. I am pretty sure that she had to fight some serious urges not to roll her eyes, but she's very hippie and polite and I think it runs against her nature to set rules in her class. And so, every Tuesday I head to Nia and Noni and her princesses come with me. The princesses dance quietly on Noni's lap while the rest of the class dances out on the floor.

It was all going pretty well until today. It started out as usual - with Noni and her princesses hanging out in the back of the room. But then, right at the end of the class, Noni said in a really loud voice, "My belly hurts!" I took one look at her with her hand on her mouth and immediately ran over. And then she threw up. And then she threw up again. And again. All over. All over the princesses, her backpack, her dress, her shoes, my coat, her hands, my hands, and, of course, the dance class floor.

At that moment, my heart went out to Noni for being sick, but I'll admit that I also shrank in horror at what everyone in the room must be thinking. I imagined the whole class gasping in disgust and running out of the room. Instead, within seconds I found myself surrounded by five different women, all of them handing me paper towels and one of them even helping to wipe up the floor. Each one of them told me not to worry, of course kids can get sick anywhere, and began to console Noni in soothing voices.

As they stooped to help me, I felt an immediate great love for all of the other moms out there. Because at that moment I realized that there is not a single mom in the world who doesn't look at a two-year-old throwing up in a dance class and think, "I have been there" and feel a great sympathy for both the child and her mother. And so I thanked them for their help and cleaned Noni up as quickly as I could. Then I left the class, smelling of throw up but feeling truly grateful for the connection between mothers all over the world.