Life Takes Us for a Ride - Part 2

After our a/c was finally fixed we decided to stay one last night with our friends as the a/c cooled our house down. That night Seth threw up three times. It was just lovely. The next morning we returned home where Nathan started having diarrhea. Two days later Benjamin started having it. A couple of days later Seth and Joel ended up with it, but thankfully are old enough to deal with that themselves! The boys' diarrhea lasted several days. It was awful and I couldn't imagine anything being worse than dealing with all of that. That was until...

Benjamin had such a bad diaper that it leaked out. That in and of itself is just gross, but he walked through the entire first floor of our house dripping about every six inches or so. I don't think I've ever had to deal with something so yuck. I was on my hands and knees with cleaner getting it all cleaned off the wood floor, area rug, and bedroom carpet. I rented a carpet shampooer and spent my entire day cleaning all the floors in the house. Fun stuff.

The day after I cleaned the carpets Benjamin was looking rather puny all curled up on the gameroom couch. I went over and asked if he was okay. He said, "Hurt. Mouth." in the puniest voice ever. In that moment I just knew they he was going to throw up. I just knew it. But for whatever reason I scooped him into my arms and just held him and comforted him. I stood up with him and decided to go lay him in his bed for a nap. I took two steps and suddenly vomit came flying at me going down my shirt and gathering between us as I held him. I yelled, "SETH!!! HURRY, GET A TOWEL!" He ran to the bathroom just a few feet away and returned within seconds with a towel. At this point you are probably thinking that I sweetly and tenderly wiped my son and myself clean. No, no. I told Seth, "Put that under us! Make sure nothing hits the carpet!!" Just thinking about that makes me chuckle. I had just worked so hard on our carpets getting them all so nice and clean. This wasn't even 24 hours later! I was concerned about Benjamin, of course. We made our way to the bathroom where we basically had to disrobe to get cleaned up. Nasty stuff, I tell ya. And I am happy to report that nary a drop soiled my freshly cleaned carpet!

Poor little guy slept with us for three nights. He was very sick and for almost two days just couldn't keep anything down. Finally he ate some crackers and made his way back to being his normal healthy self by the third day. It was hard to see him so sick though.

This was at the end of last week. On Sunday morning, I felt like maybe the hard stuff of the last three weeks was behind us. We loaded up the kids to head to church and lo and behold, the check engine light came on. Great! I've learned through this to just not even ask, "What next?!"

Sunday night Joel came down with fever and a horrible headache. Thankfully, his stomach seemed to be fine. Whatever bug that has plagued all the children seems to be finally coming to an end at the time of this post (Wednesday evening).

Whew, it's been rough having sick boys and trying to plan for school and actually start school, but it's just part of being a mom.