I'm living in abject fear

Well, my back* is much better - thanks for your sympathy - and it's a good thing.

I was making the boy his dinner and he was sitting on J's lap watching "Finding Nemo" for the very first time. I'd nearly finished preparing his meal and he coughs. J asks him is he is okay, and the boy coughs again and spits something out. And then it happens in earnest: he vomits.

We were all shocked. Thankfully, the boy didn't seem particularly bothered by it. J and I started talking about why and how and what to clean it up with and the boy just calmly watched his movie. I put the food I just made away, we cleaned up the mess (Oh, my beautiful new carpet! No!) and decided to offer the poor kid some Pedialyte and bread for dinner instead. He readily took so the drink but refused all but two bites of bread. J fears that he will wake up at 4 a.m. hungry. I fear that he will wake up before then. Sick.

J has been trying to think of reasons that could have caused "the episode" - the term we will use to refer to this evening for the next few days, I suspect. J gets irritated with me when I try to remind him that illness - what I think is really going on - is good for the boy's immune system.

I hope I'm wrong. In the meantime, please pray for our health.

*ET asked if I had been to a doctor. Uh, no. I have health insurance, but it's a personal policy. As soon as you go for something that is potentially expensive - like a back injury - they raise the rates. And if I ever have to change insurance companies, they will exclude any future back injuries from my policy. Since it was just a muscle issue that will get better with some rest, I'm not going to go just yet. If it turns into a chronic problem, I'll go.