Give me coughs...
Give me a fever...
Give me hand, foot, and mouth...
Give me pink eye...
But for the love of all things holy, please don't make me deal with stomach bugs!!
I used to throw up a lot when I was a kid. I got motion sickness pretty bad, so long car rides usually included me throwing up over a nearby guardrail. I got so many stomach bugs and flus that it wasn't uncommon for me to have some kind of throwing up sickness at least ten times a year. And when I threw up it would break the blood vessels around my eyes and I would develop dark spots all over my face and my eyes would swell up. It was horrible!!! Oh, and the best part was that the spots would stick around for about a week. So long after I felt better I still looked like I had been hit by a truck... Awesome...
So when my kids get sick, I cringe. The truth is, I want to run as fast and as far in the opposite direction as possible. But I'm a mom, and that isn't practical, or terribly loving. So instead, I suck it up, be an adult, and deal. (Not without a good deal of mental grumbling!)
This morning I was in the living room and when I returned to the kitchen, Baby E had throw up all over the tray of his high chair. He just sat there smiling at me like nothing whatsoever was wrong. Confused, I figured he must have coughed himself into a throw up fit. I cleaned him and the tray off and moved on.
Fast forward four hours. I'm sitting on the stairs into the kitchen holding Baby E when he makes a strange noise and I look down and realize he just threw up all over me. But wait! He wasn't done... That was just the prelude. All of a sudden the floodgates open and I am drenched (as in every piece of clothing I'm wearing is now completely drenched and I'm gagging in my own mouth!!!) and I'm sitting there, frozen because I know if I move I'm going to feel the warm sliminess creep through my clothing and onto my skin. But I need a towel! Ugh! I yell to Big E to grab the towel on the stove and he looks right at it and can't find it. I'm pretty much freaking out at this point and begging him to just get me a towel. Once the towel situation was sorted out, and Tim came to the rescue, I wiped myself down and went upstairs to change.
Thankfully Baby E hasn't thrown up since then. We didn't let him eat all day, and this evening we started him back on some pedialite. Still waiting to see if that stays down but so far so good. He was pretty angry that he wasn't allowed to eat and made that abundantly clear all evening. He is currently asleep upstairs and I'm just praying he stays that way through the night. I'm going to have one ravenous little fellow in the morning. Poor little guy!
