Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Oh the Joy of Sick Children...

The vomiting began Thursday evening.

We were ready to go on our trip to visit family for the 4th. The girls were beyond excited to see cousins. Everyone was expecting us. Then Prince Charming decided it would be a great time to throw up for the first time. In the car. In the carseat. You know the car we planned to be driving in for six hours the next morning?? Then he got me. I'm not exaggerating when I say he got me from head to toe, even down my shirt. Then all over his bed. Thanks, Buddy.

I didn't know what to do. We were all so excited and ready for our trip, but I didn't want to take sick kids, especially since I'd be traveling alone. I had just given him a bottle from a can of formula that was given to us as a sample in the hospital. It said it was good until 2011, so I didn't think it would be a problem. The timing for the throwing up matched up perfectly with the new formula and he didn't act sick at all. So I tossed the can, got up the next morning, and watched him for awhile, and decided he was fine, chalking it up to a bad can of formula.


And he was fine. All the way to Nana's house, until he decided to throw up again in the middle of the night. Then twice more the next afternoon.

Then Oldest Princess decided it would be a good idea to get sick the morning we were supposed to head home. So we traveled the six hours home stopping to throw away sick bags.

By Monday, she was feeling great, but I kept her inside away from neighbor kids to make sure she was better. Poor Littlest Princess was bored out of her mind because she had to stay home, too. I thought it was all behind us by Monday night.

King Charming and I had a date planned for the evening. I wasn't sure if we should still go through with it, and neither was the mom of our babysitter. She's a friend of mine with six kids and didn't want her crew exposed. I don't blame her. But we had hired her son to come over after we put the kids to bed so we could go out for an hour or two to give us a date and him a chance to raise money for camp. I told her he wouldn't be interacting with the kids since they would be asleep by the time he got here, and I promised to use a bunch of Lysol. She agreed.

Sure enough, while we were gone Littlest Princess decided it was her turn. My friend had to come over and help until we got back. I felt so guilty.

Now I've heard that Nana got sick after we left. I'm sure everyone is just so glad we decided to grace them with our presence. I just made one bad decision after another. In my defense, I really did believe it was just the formula.

So, the moral of the story is: If one child gets sick, cancel ALL PLANS until EVERYONE in the household has had it. Then add another few days on to that just to be safe.

This is my official apology to all involved. : )

You know what, though? I'm glad I was dumb. Don't tell anyone, but I'm still glad we went on our trip: Amazingly, it was a great trip. Despite the sickness, I loved seeing my family and watching my kids have so much fun. The girls had a BLAST! And I realized something: I have really great, fun to be with kids. We had such a good time on our drive. You know you have great kids when you enjoy them on a road trip.

And King Charming took me hiking on the foothills last night for our date. I got to watch the sun set from the top of a hill overlooking our valley. That was worth all of the apologies I'm going to have to make to my friend this morning. That is if she still is my friend....


5 comments:

LifeAtTheCircus.com said...

Oh man... I hope she is a good friend. Because I'd only want to do that to a good friend. (Is that backwards or what?)

I have been there... stopping to empty barf buckets every 30 min for a 5 hr ride home. And thinking you are past the worse only to have someone throw up days later.

It is so frustrating. You aren't alone and if it makes you feel any better, I'd have done the same thing!

Kim said...

I pray it's done for EVERYONE! You lived out my nightmare. Of course, with 6 kids, I have plenty of stories like this one. I'm just not sure I could find something good in it as soon as you did:)

Katy said...

You know what Beck, no matter who gets sick and who got sick, I'm glad you came too! I would have a housefull of sick kids, 24 hour only please, to get to see you again! We had a great time! See you in a few weeks!

Mama Mimi (Dana) said...

Don't feel guilty Becky. We are all glad you came. At least I think Nana is. LOL. JK. I had to take care of her for a day and now Charlie has it. I just look at it as a gift from you and yours. I'm hoping I don't get it now. Tee hee. Feeling good so far. Love you and glad you were here to share. Yuck Yuck Yuck.

The Jernigan Family said...

Knock on wood, we are all ok, and from the sounds of it, it seemed like a short flu! I agree with Katy, it was worth it to get to visit and let our new babies meet each other! I just am loving the fact that they will grow up close in age like all of us...so someday we will be the grandparents watching the cannon ball parade (aside from your Dad). On your last blog you wrote about putting stuff in baggies for portion control, when I had gestational diabetes Jeramy came with me to the class and was the only daddy in a class full of pregnant women, when we got home he took out all the snacks and counted each chip, cracker, cereal etc...and what he found was by putting them in the really really small bags, it made it look like I was getting alot...I will never forget him sitting at the table with all of this food and counting for hours in the little bags I could have....what a guy, now he is acting as stay-in-bed recovery police, so if you don't hear from me in a while or at 3am again that is why! Love you and glad I got to see you guys!