Out of the Mouths of Babes

Last Friday at 2:00 a.m. Shawn and I are awakened by the shrill screams of our youngest child. He may look nothing like me, but he sounds just like young Jessica. High pitched, loud screams that humans should not be capable of making. This was what startled us both out of bed on Friday morning. I go in to check on Evan to find that he has thrown up all over himself and his crib. Lovely! I scoop him up, change his clothes and hand him off to Shawn so that I can clean up his crib. By morning, we've run through all of the sheets that fit his crib mattress and I'm out of nightshirts.

I get Nick ready and off to school, but I must stay home with the baby. Luckily, it seems it was only a 12-hour virus, as he's done throwing up by mid-day. He's still not eating much, but he's acting more like himself. I find out that Evan is a super cuddle bug when he's not feeling well.

Saturday Evan is perfectly fine and starting to eat more. I'm feeling very lucky that we were able to keep the virus in check and that the kids will be healthy while Shawn's away for his Vista testing.

Sunday I realize I was overly confident in my abilities to kill a virus. While I was cooking dinner, Shawn was out in the yard playing with the boys. Out of the blue, Nick got sick. He really didn't seem any worse for wear, so I'm thinking he might have just gotten sick because he was running around out in the heat. We ate dinner without incident and even went for a family bike ride afterwards. On the way home from the bike ride, we stopped at the park. I knew something was up when Nick said he didn't want to play at the park, that he wanted to go home.

We got home and I sent the boys to the bathroom for their bath before bed. Evan was undressed and in the water already. I was getting Nick undressed when I noticed he took on an almost grayish color. I no sooner said to him, "If you're going to throw up, make sure to do it in the potty," when he threw up all over me!!! Well, at least we're in the bathroom - easy enough to clean up. Clean the baby, get him out of tub and send him downstairs with Shawn; strip my clothes off, Nick's clothes off, the bath mat and towels that were in the line of fire; then bathe me and Nick. Get us into clean clothes and set Nick up with a bucket. Thank God that Nick's old enough to know how to use a bucket.

Monday, 2:00 a.m. (again), Evan is back up and crying. I go in and hear this gurgle in his belly. I'm smart enough to go into the bathroom just in case. As I cross the threshold into the bathroom, Evan pukes all over me. Why, oh why, have I been puked on at least a dozen times in the last 3 days?!?!?! I call into Shawn and have him come and help with the middle of the night clean-up again.

Here it is Tuesday and both boys are back in school. I, however, am home because I've finally succumb to the nearly impossible to kill virus that has attacked my family. Though I'm home sick, I've taken the opportunity to scrub my house, open all the windows and do tons of laundry in an attempt to keep us from passing this on any further.

Hopefully our family is on the mend and will not suffer another round of vomiting, especially since Shawn's out of town until late Thursday night/Friday morning. Shawn seems to have lucked out - not only did he manage to not get the virus, he also go to leave prior to the post-virus house cleaning and will come home to a wife who must've lost at least 5 pounds from not eating in 2 days!