Third Member Down

This morning at seven o’clock my son vomited.   He vomited again thirty minutes later and about every thirty minutes after that until close to five o’clock this evening.    He was initially glad to be getting out of school but a short number of hours later he was just glad the floor wasn’t moving out from under him and the bottle of water was still reasonably in reach.

And here’s the thing about my son—he’s been the best sick person in our family yet.   My daughter was very good, missing the trash can a few times and nailing the floor in red splashes galore once, but otherwise she was a calm, non-complaining sick person.   My son was even better.   He would lie wherever, sit up, get as much of the vomit (water and ginger ale) into the trash can, wipe his mouth on a cloth and tell me if he needed a new cloth or anything else.

He was so mentally tired of being sick that at one point he sat up and leaned against the bed.   I asked him if he wanted anything and he said no, all he wanted to do was think.  He did have one request which was to have me stay near him while he lay on the carpet and tried unsuccessfully to sleep.   I stayed in the room and did whatever work I could and helped my son into dry clothes when they got soiled.

Just about dinner time I looked down at my garfield-clad pajama wearing boy and heard him say, “can you take me to bed?”  I carried him up and removed every stuffed animal, extra blanket, sleeping bag and throw pillow from his bed, telling him I didn’t want him to get them dirty if he vomited again.  He said all he needed was a blanket.   I put one on him and he went straight to sleep.

So that’s three of the four members of our family out with this stomach virus.   My husband is using hand sanitizer in epic proportions, in the hopes he’ll miss the bug.

The Big Boy Update:  Early this morning before my son got more ill he wanted to watch Cosmos.   The episode was about continental formation and started with Pangea.   My son looked at me and said, “I want to live on Pangea.”  I told him Pangea was back in time.   He wasn’t bothered by this at all because he’d seen the episode before and knew Pangea would eventually break up and become the continents we know now.   He told me, “but we are on Pangea today!”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is excited to have our neighbor, Bryna, visit her for special friends day tomorrow.   She’s going to show Bryna the work she does in the classroom.  Tomorrow I’m looking forward to hearing what Bryna thought about her class and the work they do.