Thursday, March 13, 2014

It's Just "the bug"...

So when I was little whenever we would get sick my mom would say, "you just have 'the bug'..."  I would automatically conjure up an image of whimsical butterflies and ladybugs fluttering around in my tummy.  It was such a magical explanation for a belly ache.  Well, let me tell you there was NOTHING  magical or whimsical about the "the bug" that plagued me and my poor family over the past week and a half.  There were no cute ladybugs smiling as the went topsy turvy in my tummy.  It was more like cockroaches, wasps, fire ants and stink bugs that laid the smack down on our innards.

Sara was so grumpy one day...I know shocker, right?  Well she was relentless.  It lasted until bedtime...she fought me tooth and nail; she wasn't tired, she couldn't sleep, she had a belly ache...yeah, yeah my friend I have heard it all before.  She ended up coming and sitting next to me on the couch.  Still complaining her stomach hurt I asked if it were a normal belly ache or a different one.  No sooner than the word "different" crossed her lips did she throw up all over herself, the couch, blanket and floor.  Sara is a very particular child and apparently she is too good to throw up in an average bucket...oh no, she can only heave into a soft fabric.  So by 4 a.m. we were out of blankets and towels and had moved on to table cloths.

She is down for the count from Saturday until Tuesday.  Then nothing.  I thought we were in the clear.  I was wrong.  So wrong...

This past Saturday Anna is kind of weepy.  I just think she is over tired.  Now I am not saying our couch is possessed or anything, but...there seems to be a Bermuda Triangle of Vomit hovering over it.  Mid afternoon Anna was laying in the exact spot Sara was and yup, you guessed it.  She starts puking.  Poor bugga.  Being the complete opposite of her elder sister she handles it like a champ and gets all the puke into the bucket and rings a bell when she needs us.  Annie is sick all day but insists on sleeping in her own bed.  Sara on the other hand comes looking to snuggle the second she gets a hangnail.  Since Anna has been sleeping all day she is wide awake at 2 a.m.  She makes her way into my bed and we snuggle and watch TV.  She leans over, smiles and kisses me.  Oh how she makes my heart melt.  About 10 minutes later she leans over and smiles...I lean in for the kiss and how do I put this delicately?  Blows chunks all over my face...my eyes, in my nose and mouth...nothing was spared.  Great...  Now my immune system is a ticking time bomb!

By the next morning Chuck gets it.  And of course he gets it way worse than anyone else.  Ever. Since the beginning of time.  He was constantly moaning.  Sara, my worrier, was concerned.  "Mommy, is dad OK?"...yeah, I tell her.  "What is wrong with him?"...oh he has the stomach bug too.  "Mom, should he go to the doctor?"...No, I explain that he will be fine...he has the same bug she had.  I had to reassure her over and over that he was OK.  The moaning continued and finally I had to let her in on one of life's mysteries.  A phenomenon that defies any real explanation...that when boys get sick (no matter how minor the illness) they act as if they are about to die within the hour.  It was a hard truth that as a female she needed to learn at some point.  It is one of those things that as women we just have to learn, take in and just accept it and move on.  Sara finally was in on the joke and she started imitating him and man was she spot on.  I love you babe!!!  But come on Chuck, the Oscars were last week.

Chuck ends up taking a sick day on Monday...something he rarely does.  Just to f*ck with him I decide to get in on the action and start puking too.  Or at least that is the way her perceives it.  As I am coming out of the bathroom from a vomit session he grumbles about how he just wanted to stay home and sleep.  Oh, sorry we ruined your plans...Yeah, like this is how I planned my day off too.

Speaking of the bathroom.  We asked A LOT of our bathroom this past weekend.  With the 4 of us 'throwing and going' we really punished that poor, poor room.  Our bathroom is tiny.  If you are in there with the door closed there is a good bet one of your body parts, be it an arm, leg, knee, elbow or arse is touching some solid surface.   In the 48 hours that we were quarantined I swear I was coming out of there sicker than when I went in.  I think if I came in contact with the bathing suit Farrah wore in Backdoor Teen Mom I would have a much less concentration of germs on me than if I touched the sink in my own bathroom.  Yeah, it was that gross in there.  No amount of bleach I sprayed seemed to take away the sick vibe that was hovering around in there.

It wasn't just my bathroom that was disgusting.  It was the whole house!  Having two and a half kids left to their own devices while mom and dad waited for this plague to pass threw our entire world into chaos.  I can not even begin to describe the mess.  Ever see the show Hoarders Buried Alive?  AMATEURS!!! I was beginning to think we needed a backhoe to come in and just dig us out from all the crafting crap, snack remnants, mounds of laundry and dirty bottles.  I was going to take and post pictures of the squalor we were living in but I thought if DCF caught a glimpse of them they would come and take my kids away.  Truth be told...there may have been a point or two where the thought of making an anonymous call to the hotline crossed my mind.

Now do you think the kids cared that we were sick?  If you answered with a resounding "NO" then you would be correct.  They could not have cared less.  For some reason, even though Chuck and I were down for the count these kids still wanted to play, get a ride to school, read books and eat!  WTF?  So with 6 hours straight of grossness coming out both ends I still had to meet my children's basic needs.  Emily didn't care that I was so weak I didn't even have energy to change the TV channel.  At one point Chuck and I were on the couch, the kids had gone off to play and we were sitting there watching Nick Jr....Dora I think.  So back to Emmie...I am still nursing her.  As we all know, mom's don't get a sick day.  So I try nursing her.  I was dehydrated.  Hadn't been able to keep anything down at all...not even a sip of water.  So my boobs were useless.  They looked normal but I kept trying to tell her, "I got nothing"...Have you or one of your kids ever drank all the juice out of a Capri Sun and then you blow it back up?  It looks full, but, when you suck on the straw it immediately crumples in on itself.  Yeah...nursing was kind of like that.  Or better yet, wasn't there a scene in a Chevy Chase movie, maybe Christmas Vacation, when he carves a beautiful looking turkey, but the second the knife pierces the skin it disintegrates and dust comes flying up?  Again, very similar.  Well, poor Emily was having none of that.  She wanted her milk and she wanted it now damn it!  She was trying to nurse all the while her little hands turned into little fists of fury and she was beating the crap out of my boobies.  I get it.  I have been known to hit of kick a vending machine when my soda doesn't come out.  Now just as kicking the machine is usually an exercise in futility...so was this.  There was no milk coming...all she was doing was banging around the tumble weeds that had started to gather in my boobs.  I guess I will have to start taking Fenugreek again, doesn't that sound like a foreign swear word?  Fen-you Greek!!..No, Fen-you! 

So, thankfully we are all feeling well again and the house is slowly starting to look like the "after"  from Hoarders.  But I want to leave you with a tip...a life lesson I had to, unfortunately, learn the hard way.  If you are less than 48 hours out from a nasty, nasty stomach bug and you get the urge at say 10:30 at night to eat guacamole...just say NO GRACIAS!!!  It will not end well...I speak from experience. 








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