The Joy of Motherhood

The stomach flu has hit the Bean home! It all began the night before last when Jason woke up crying at 2:30 AM. I dragged myself out of bed slowly and finally made my way into his room. One step in and I knew it was going to be a long night. The poor kid had sullied every blanket, stuffed animal, pillow, sheet etc in his crib. This was no little thing. So I changed his clothes, put him in bed with Jeff and cleaned up his crib. That took about 20 minutes. I put him back in bed and went back to bed. Phew! Not. Sure enough, I wasn't down for long before he started throwing up again. So we started the process again. I realized that sleep was going to be a nice wish for tonight. I took Jason down to the spare room so we could both lay down together and I could easier direct his barfing. So that was our night. Every half hour or less he'd throw up some more. I'd as quickly as possible direct it into the bucket. Eventually we gave up on clothes since we had been through so many and resorted to just throwing towels over the little messes he made. He finally was too tired to stay awake around 4:00 AM. So he drifted off only to wake up heaving after 15 minutes or so. I couldn't sleep because any movement from him sent me reaching frantically for the bucket. At 5:20, he threw up again and then told me he wanted to go to his crib. I knew this wasn't over, but I obliged him anyway. I put him in bed then went back to bed myself. (That may have been a mistake. It may have been easier to just push through without sleep.) Again at 6:00 we heard him going at it again. This time I forced Jeff up because I couldn't move from exhaustion. Again, at 6:40. My turn again. Then I was done. Jeff took care of him from then on. I have vague memories of Jason being in bed with us for awhile and then both Jeff and Jason being gone.

I dragged myself out of bed around 9:30 to find out the state of the house. Nathan and Katie are out of school for Mid-Winter break which is a mixed blessing. Good because I didn't have to worry about getting them off to school, bad because I have to deal with them all day. So I woke up feeling like I was the one that had the stomach flu all night and Jason was running around playing with the kids as if nothing had happened. Is that fair???? Honestly! He probably got the same amount of sleep that I did not to mention that he had absolutely nothing in his stomach. Jeff reported that he threw up one more time after he got up, but had nothing to eat. So where was he getting this fuel to run and around and play? I think kids are made of rubber inside and out.

Eventually, he slowed down and acted sick the rest of the day. He spent a lot of time being still on the couch watching TV which is not normal behavior for my 2 year old. Eventually he said he was hungry and we tried some food. When that didn't come up, we tried some more. We were fianlly out of the woods...or so I thought. It all came up last evening while we were having family home evening. Luckily, that was the end of it and we were all able to get a good night's rest last night. Hopefully we won't see any more today.

Of course now my stomach is churning. Imagine a washing machine agitating clothes. That's what it feels like my stomach is doing to its contents. So is this sympathy stomach gurglings, or is it just because I manifest all my problems through my stomach. Or perhaps it's from lack of sleep. Anything, but please don't let it be that I'm coming down with this nasty flu.

So I'm trying to take things pretty easy today. I can't go anywhere anyway because of Jason. While I was getting ready for the day, I sent Nathan and Katie to go get dressed. I went to go check on them and found them both in Katie's room still in their pajamas. I noticed that Katie had moved all of her stuffed animals to a different side of the room and was stacking them. She was standing over them with her hand resting on the wall. "What are you guys doing?" I asked innocently. "Nothing, I'm just resting my hand." was Katie's response. Uh-oh. That means trouble. "You're lying." I said. I'm so perceptive. She uncovered a hole about the size of a penny in her wall. She and Nathan decided that they wanted a hole between their rooms so they could talk to each other while they were in their rooms. In her other hand she was hiding a pair of nail clippers. They had pulled out the fingernail file and had bored a hole into the wall.

What do you say to something like that? What do you do? Especially when you're tired and not feeling well in the first place! You blog about it to let off steam!

And that is the joy of motherhood!