They told us not to do it...

...but you know how that goes. What are we supposed to do if Van loves being held up high over our heads right after he eats? Especially when it produces the biggest open-mouth smile you ever saw? Julie (Jon's sister) was the first to warn us, and even told us how she'd told her son not to do that to his little brother or he'd spit up all over him. But when the baby likes it, we're pretty bad at resisting.

It was all fun and games and even a great source of my joking with Jon when it happened to him a couple weeks ago right before we put Van down for the night. I could see it coming from across the room, there was no way Jon would clear it. And he didn't. New spit up made a lovely streak from his hair down to the middle of his shirt. Luckily he'd turned his head at the last second, so his hair and face were only bombed on the side. We both laughed and got a great kick out of it, and I was just grateful it wasn't me.

But what comes around goes around, and last night while Jon was out doing man things (b-ball) and after I had just finished Van's last feeding, I was playing with him and he was being super giggly and smiley and I was loving it. Until I lifted him up above my head. One second we were all smiles, and then all the sudden I was wet. But that really gross kind of wet that you don't even know where to start cleaning and you don't even want to think about what's on your lips. My only thought was to spit. Spit a lot, spit hard, and spit fast. Anything to keep it out of my mouth. Of course Van got off totally spit-up free. I looked at him after recovering from the initial shock of the smell, and he was sitting there smiling at me, clearly feeling much better. And maybe I laughed. You can't be mad at a face like that, even when he opens his mouth up and drops his dinner on my face. And yes I still think risking the spit-up recurrence is worth the face we get from him when we do the full baby body lift over our heads. So maybe we won't ever learn our lesson.

Just to prove even babies that spit up on their parents are still cute, here's our little man hanging out on our bed with nothing but innocence written all over his face.



















Here's the "leave me alone, mom, I'm resting" look.