What WAS that??

I believe when I last appeared here, I was off to clean up after a very barfy Norah. Well, I imagined I was off to clean up after a very barfy Norah... here's how it played out:

I was finishing up my blog entry and spellchecking it in Word (absolutely I do) when the doorbell rang. The chair in the office is approximately three feet away from the door, but by the time I got to it there was no one in sight, meaning it had to be either the mailman or the UPS guy. Both of them have an unreal ability to ring my doorbell and bolt back to their truck as though to avoid any personal contact whatsoever. It was a package of Christmas gifts from my mother. I debated about opening them because of the sick children factor, but Jacob seemed fine, so Norah was the only one that was really sick. As I opened up the big box and started distributing presents, I gave one to Brynn and she was so excited that she opened her mouth to express her joy, and SPLAT! Out came a significant pile of red jello vomit. (I did not give her red jello. I told Tom to make jello for Jacob, he didn't think about the foolishness of the color red, then he left it out on the counter and Bean snuck some when no one was looking-- BUSTED). And so Brynn was now on the sick list as well.

Late in the afternoon, I wondered if I was starting to feel a little "funny" myself. At first I thought it was a rather late-in-the-day cup of coffee with some creamer I decided tasted yucky. Then Tom called to see if I needed anything before he came home, and mentioned that he had not been feeling well all afternoon. Not good. We stocked up on Sprite and club crackers and hoped for the best.

Oh, but it got ugly. SO ugly. Jacob never did throw up again, which was helpful. Wyatt never got sick at all, which was beyond fabulous. The girls both threw up regularly for the next 10 hours or so. Tom started pretty much as soon as he got home. I was the last to finally succumb, which meant that late into the night I was the last to continue. Tom and I both also had an intestinal cleansing experience, if you know what I mean. It was brutal for everyone. I was trying to get sprite into all of us just so we'd have something in our stomachs. In my opinion, having something to throw up is better than nothing. But Tom and I could barely move, we were light headed, we could not keep anything down for more than a few minutes-- AND we had kids that needed us. At one point I remember wondering what on earth we were going to do if we didn't get a little better soon. It's hard to call a neighbor or friend who has kids of their own and ask them if they can watch some of your possibly deadly children. At one point, I had Wyatt lying on the floor while he ate, holding up his bottle in one hand, and was leaning over my barf bucket while he watched with interest. Finally, at about 2am, the girls were both done puking and I was able to keep some Propel down and just started hoping for sleep to come. Eventually I did get a little sleep, and that was the end of the nasty part of the illness.

But yesterday was also not fun. We were all just wiped out. Tom recovered a little earlier than I did, having gotten more sleep and having stopped with the sickness a little sooner than I did. I still could hardly stand. The kids seemed to bounce back a little better, as kids do, though Norah took a few extra naps. Toast, sprite, and club crackers for everyone!

So what was that, anyway? Stomach bug? Food poisoning? I don't know. I'm kind of terrified to eat anything out of my refrigerator, since I don't know what made us sick. Trying to figure out what we all ate is puzzling, since at any given meal there is at least one person who will skip something because they don't like it, are crying, spill it, are sitting in the corner, etc. So what could have been something that we ALL ate? I don't know. Maybe it was something Jacob brought home from school. He first was sick on Saturday, then seemed fine Sunday (which is why I sent him to school Monday). So what was the culprit, my cooking or grimy kid germs? We may never know. I'm still feeling a little funny, so I'm sticking to the soda and crackers for the time being. But I'm able to take care of my kids now, and that's what's important. Their vomit is the most important vomit.