Mama Said There'd Be Days (Weeks) Like This!

**Warning!! Bodily Fluids of ALL Types Ahead!! Warning!!**

This post will most likely be long and while not exactly what I would call “boring”, it might not be all that interesting. Mostly, it’s a reminder for me of how difficult life with this many small children can be. As my sister-in-law always tells me, the bigger the kids, the bigger the problems…

Last week, Youngest Boy came down with a stomach virus…in the middle of the night. This means that around 12AM, I was cleaning puke off of damn near everything in his room. In the dark. While trying not to wake anyone else up. Because I can’t stand the smell of vomit (and really, who can?) I washed what I thought was all of the bedding that had been sprayed immediately. This meant that I was awake until the washer turned off at 1AM because I just knew that it would wake one of the girls. It didn’t. Lesson learned. I consider it a personal victory that when my husband was shocked to learn of this the next morning that I didn’t deck him…

I cleaned every surface with cleaner and then Lysoled everything. EVERYTHING! I kept finding little spots that I had missed in his room, but by the end of the weekend, after we had cleaned the carpet, the smell had finally dissipated and I was patting myself on the back for my stellar cleaning abilities because no one else had gotten sick.

Tuesday morning I went shopping for some treats for Youngest Boy because he was scheduled to have surgery on Thursday morning. I left the bags in the space shuttle when I took the stuff inside. As I was preparing snacks for the road trip to pick Oldest Boy up from school, I started to feel “not quite right” (in Baby Girl’s words). I pushed through, knowing that I didn’t have a choice. As I’m driving down the Interstate I had to pull over, grab the shopping bag, and throw up (sorry for the visual). This happened several times on the trip down/back. And then I got home and barely made it out of the van before I threw up in the garbage can there. A lot. My poor kids thought I was dying, I think!

But, I’m a mom. And I don’t get sick time. I had to continue to do what I would normally do all while stopping every twenty minutes or so to puke. Nice. I made dinner. I helped with homework. And I cleaned. I was literally being sick in one toilet while I had cleaner in the other. I so did not want the others to catch it. But, alas, there’s not much you can do…

Wednesday morning, still feeling like shit, I had to get up earlier than normal so that I could take Oldest Boy to school so that my husband could leave early for work – he had a haircut scheduled for Wednesday evening. Then I had to hurry home, drop off the youngest 3 with my mom, and drive an hour to an appointment with my surgeon (did I mention I have a hernia? Well, I do.) Another hour drive home where I took a nap with Little One (Thank you, Mom!). Feeling a little better, I went back down to pick up Oldest Boy. If you’re keeping track, that’s four hours on the road.

After I came home, I needed to start preparing for the next day – Youngest Boy’s surgery. Mr. MOTH had that day off so that he could come with us, but I had to have everything ready for the other kids so that my mom and aunt would be able to care for them with minimal fuss. Knowing I would have to get up before 6AM, I tried to go to bed early but Little One didn’t really think this was necessary. At 10PM she was still awake when Mr. MOTH came upstairs. We had to check out what he was doing (her idea) and on the way past Baby Girl’s room I heard, uh, splashing. I threw the baby to daddy (figuratively, of course) and went in with her. Is there anything more pathetic than a 3-year-old throwing up for the first time that she can remember? She had no idea what was happening. I did. I cleaned her up, stripped the crib, and started the laundry. And then lather, rinse, repeat until around 11:30. She slept on the floor of her room on a comforter with her head next to a garbage can. I still feel awful for her when I think of it.

Finally, I went to bed only to wake up around 12:30 with the feeling that something “wasn’t quite right”. Not me. Mr. MOTH. He’s never thrown up in all of the years we’ve been together, not even during the Great Steak House Incident of 2004 (don’t ask). He was being sick. Which meant that he was out of commission for the next two days. {SIGH} I had to handle the surgery and the aftermath alone. Thank God for my mom and aunt because I would have been screwed without them.

Youngest Boy’s surgery went very well and he did fantastic! I’ll post about that separately (with photos because I’m neurotic).

Returned Youngest Boy to our house and turned around and went to pick Oldest Boy up from school and went grocery shopping. Did I mention it takes about 4 days before your stomach doesn’t hurt any more? This is Day 2 for me. While shopping he said, “Mommy, my belly hurts…” %$#@!!!

And lather, rinse, repeat. I’ll just say this: You think you’re prepared. You have all of your bases covered. I had cans to catch whatever came out and towels underneath everything…but only on one side of his bed. Can you guess which side he got sick on? Of course. I went in my bathroom and bawled. Pretty soon, he knocked on the door, threw up on my bathroom floor and then LAID DOWN IN IT. Never, ever say that it can’t get any worse. Because it can. %$#@&

Silver Linings:
Youngest Boy had the flu BEFORE his surgery and hopefully won’t get it again.
We’re saving a lot on groceries because no one wants to eat.
At least I had those shopping bags in the space shuttle.
Because of all of the other stuff going on, I barely had time to worry as much as I normally would have about the surgery.
I will NEVER cancel MY hair appointment again. Ever.

How was your week?