Now that I have finally removed all of the vomit smell from my hands I can tell you how my Labor Day weekend went. Yes, I said vomit. I will discuss that in a bit.

For the third year in a row Dragon Con rocked my face off. I attended a True Blood panel that included Michael McMillian (Reverend Steve Newlin), Nelsan Ellis (Lafayette Reynolds) and Kristin Bauer van Straten (Pam De Beaufort). The crappy series finale was redeemed by being in the same room as these three. It was funny and sweet to hear them reminisce about the show. Kristin cried at times and Michael did his “Daddy Dance” that he performed whenever he had to wear the hideous pleated pants Rev. Newlin wore so often.

Notice I am not wearing any jewelry in this photo with Kristin Bauer van Straten

After a visit to the Walk of Fame I got to meet all three of them, have my picture taken with Kristen and had Nelsen buy my necklace right off of my neck. You read that right. My multi-colored wooden bead necklace by Iram-inal  was so awesome he just had to have it for his grandmother. Who am I to turn down a celebrity’s cash and a gift for a grandmother?

I didn’t think this Con could get any better; but I was gloriously wrong. Civil rights icon Congressman John Lewis was on a panel for his autobiographic graphic novel March. Not only did I buy it, I also got him and Andrew Aydin, the other writer on the project, to autograph the book.  If there is one thing that is consistent about Dragon Con, it’s that you never know what will happen.

I think I will have this made into a poster

Now onto the vomit! Around 5am on Tuesday morning the kid woke me up with his screams. I got into his room and he cries, “I’m gonna throw up!” …then SPEW!!! With the lightening quick speed that only mothers with wall to wall carpeting would understand, I whisked him into the bathroom. Vomit in the bed, on the pjs and the child; but none on the carpet! You can say that my priorities are off; but you try getting that smell out of upholstery.

The next hour was spent with the boy in a bath of cool water (he had a fever), a load of laundry being done, and me catching subsequent pukes with a trashcan. All of this before 6am.

Did I mention that the husband was not home from a red-eye flight? Did I mention that I had two meetings that day? After sending an email to my coworkers telling them I would be calling into the meetings, sending a text to the hubs telling him to pick up Pedialyte  on his way home from the airport, and confining that the puke had taken a break; the kid and I laid in bed and watched cartoons on the iPad.

I will say this about being a working mother and I don’t mean to be preachy – You can do it and be proud of every minute of it. Don’t give into this whole YOUR KID SHOULD BE YOUR ENTIRE WORLD line of mommy thinking. I was not ashamed that I didn’t want vomit on the carpet. I was not ashamed to be excited about opening my laptop in anticipation of working after the boy went to sleep. I love my job and I am not a bad mom because of that. I was not ashamed that my hands wreaked of vomit after repeated washings (probably because I wasn’t going anywhere that day.) I was not ashamed that I was still pretty super pumped up from my time at Dragon Con so I waltzed through the entire episode in a good mood. I know you were spewing chunks kid; but I Lafayette likes my accessorizing!!!

How was your holiday weekend? I hope it was filled with happiness, awesomeness and as little vomit as possible.