Whatever Makes Them Happy...

Last Sunday around 10pm Leah was whining/whimpering. She often does this during the night when she loses her pacifier. However, she kept doing it for about 30 minutes so I decided to go in to see if she threw her pacifier out or something. When I approached the door, a terrible smell was coming from it. It wasn't the smell of a dirty diaper either. I hurried in and flipped on the light since I knew something was wrong and there she was....covered in her dinner from head to toe. Dinner happened to be spaghetti, carrots, and grapes so unfortunately it looked just the same as it did going down. It was the saddest thing I've ever seen. I would've sat and cried but knew she'd rather me clean her up instead. I just felt so bad because I'm sure she didn't know what was going on and tried to go back to sleep. As a result, she rubbed her whole body and face in the mess. Seriously so sad.

Clark jumped to help strip the bed and get the clean up going. We finally got the smell of puke out of Leah's hair after a nice shower and gave her some juice. She threw that up immediately. She was exhausted so we put her to bed in our closet and Clark slept on the couch so he could actually get some rest. Let's just say it was a rough night for all.

The next morning we got all the kids up and I got the milk for the boys. When Clark brought Caleb in, Caleb had dried puke ALL over him. Second saddest thing I've ever seen. What's sad is that he didn't even cry and just slept right in his mess. Poor guy. Again, Clark started the clean up and we began our fifth load of laundry before 7am. I think we did a total of 14 loads in two days. Caleb liked to time his puking for about 4-5 hours after he'd gone to bed which resulted in a lot of clean up for a couple nights.

Caleb and Leah were very sick that first day and didn't eat hardly anything. Zachary seemed as if he was in the clear and actually was such a good boy that day. Then the next morning came. He woke up gagging and screaming around 4:50am. We both ran in there thinking there would be puke on the walls but all he was getting up was mucus since his stomach was totally empty. He had his nausea/heaving/gagging-up-whatever-he-could spells about every 8-10 minutes for nearly 3 1/2 hours. Third saddest thing I've ever seen.

Thankfully, after a blessing from Clark right before Clark left for work, Zachary's heaving slowed to about every 30 minutes. He was able to relax and fall asleep next to me while the other two read books. When he woke up 30 minutes later, he was a new man. Of course no appetite but he was finally smiling and drinking some juice. Whew! What a relief.

The rest of the week was dedicated to recovery and getting these guys better. It definitely wasn't the 24 flu and will probably be almost 1 1/2 weeks before everyone is back to normal again. Clark and I haven't had the flu in a loooooooooooooooooooong time. Long enough that we can't really empathize at all. My only empathy came from pregnancy nausea and I knew all I could stomach for a couple weeks was baked potatoes. So the kids have been eating a lot of mashed sweet potatoes, oatmeal, and applesauce. We've been feeding them whatever they feel like eating and entertaining them with whatever makes them happy. It doesn't take much...

Car rides...



Getting pushed around in an empty diaper box. Clark claimed he was sore the next morning from this activity...


Organizing the recycling bin IN the recycling bin...


Lastly, watching their favorite video about cars, trucks, planes, trains, and buses while I get them ready for bed....

BEFORE

AFTER

No crying, wrestling, or fighting. Just pure happiness. Thank you Baby Einstein.

It has been a sad week and we hated not being able to do much for them except for wait it out. I was so hopeful last October that we'd make it through this flu/RSV season without getting sick. This year we got BOTH!! Oh the irony. Everyone seems to be on the mend though. So for now, we'll just continue doing whatever makes them happy.