Ew-eee. Yucky.

I couldn't help but opt for that title (a commonly heard saying of Kolbe's) for this post, considering the subject matter. And technically, I should have written this post about a week ago, but our travelling snafu has held me up. (I actually have a whole list in my book o' lists of topics that I need to write about...)

But back to the topic at hand. Barfing. And diarrhea. And not in a toilet. For either.

Yes, for the first time in my mommy career, we were hit with the infamous stomach bug. Actually, I think Kolbe might have had a little bit of it as a baby, but it was in the phase of babyhood prior to "real" food. So it was just like magnified spit-up. And of course there was that bout of it that Mark and I had two Thanksgivings ago when I was about six months pregnant with Reagan. Evil. And then there were a few other barfing episodes, but not due to sickness. For example, that one time Reagan ate the paper towel at Walmart...

With the number of times we were in the airport, the visit to the Shriners Hospital, a trip to the public playground at The Woodlands mall, and a spin on the carousel, there were multiple opportunities for us to pick it up. On Friday night, after our second trip to the airport to attempt to get home and after having a mini-meltdown over said attempt, I put the boys to bed at Pinkie and Pa's and went to bed fairly early myself. Around 2am, I heard Reagan stirring and assumed he was just rolling around a bit. No crying involved. Until those cringe inducing sounds began to pour forth from his mouth. Along with other things. I didn't even need to turn the lights on to know what happened. The sounds and smells told it all.

So not only were we not back at home, but now we had a barfer too. Lovely.

But as I wrote about earlier this week, God has his reasons. And I suppose, God had me stay in Houston precisely for this event. Before I even took Reagan out of the pack 'n play, I rushed down stairs to get my mom. This was something only she could help with. She rushed upstairs with me and while I carried Reagan to the tub to clean him up (yes, he threw up laying down, so I'm sure you can imagine how nasty he was) she cleaned out his entire bed from top to bottom. And then got it set back up with towels and what not. As I cuddled my poor sweet baby, he managed to get sick again (into my mom's new kitchen sink this time). Ew-eee. Yucky.

Before too long, I was able to get him back to sleep. The following morning, my mom rushed off to the grocery store to grab some Pedialyte, ginger ale, chicken and rice soup, crackers, etc. not just for Reagan, but for any other unfortunate victims as well. While I know Mark would have eagerly helped me out with this situation had he been there, there was something so nice about having my mom there to help me. After all, with five kiddos, this was far from her first round of this nonsense. Nothing like having training from an expert! She's the best.

By Sunday when we finally made it home, Reagan seemed to be on the road to recovery. Just trying to get the diapie cleared up. But I certainly wasn't going to get off that clean. After a little nap of my own while the boys were sleeping, I woke up with a not-so-good feeling in my belly. I managed to struggle through mass and make it home just in time for things to go from bad to worse. Ugh. Luckily this time Mark was available to help me out with the boys and the majority of the nastiness only lasted about five hours. Happy Valentine's Day, dear!

Unfortunately, the following day Mark did have to go to work so I was left at home to recover with both of the boys. Which brings me to another thing: every other job in America gets sick leave, right!?! Usually to the tune of about ten days a year. Or even one day a month. Not this job! When you're sick, there's no laying in bed recovering with a bowl of soup, a cup of Sprite, and lots of sleep. Nope. Life goes on as normal. No two-year-old or one-year-old is going to be ok with "Would you mind playing by yourself for the whole day?" or "Mama needs to lay down for a few hours; I'm feeling a little light-headed." Ha!

But I suppose that's what I signed up for when I decided to be a stay-at-home mom. Hopefully one day in the future Mark will actually be in the position to be able to take a day off when something like this comes up. But let's just not hope that that day in the future is any time too soon...I could go the rest of motherhood without another run-in with that stuff! Ew-eee. Yucky.