Vomit in the Headband Drawer and Other Unpleasantries

Warning: Very long post detailing the events of my vomit-filled adventures...

I don't know how I got so lucky as to avoid this scenario for sooooooo long, but I did and I am ever so thankful. But last night my good fortune expired.

I should have suspected something was up when Kathryn was dozing on the loveseat before bedtime. She felt a tiny bit warm to me when I tucked her in, but I thought she was still just hot from playing. She shared some sleepy, incoherent thoughts with me before whispering, "You can't see God, but he is VERY real..." And then she was out.

Julia went down hard and not without telling me she didn't feel well several times, but this has come to be routine so I thought nothing of it. No pious words passed from her lips as I left the room.

Starting at 1 something or other, Julia entered our room sobbing, stating that her stomach hurt very badly. I could hear what I thought was David crying, but it sounded too close and I wondered why on earth she would have opened his door before coming in our room. I proceeded to gather the necessary sick bedding to place at my bedside for Julia when I quickly realized it was not David, but Kathryn wailing in the hallway with her pants down because there was no toilet paper in the bathroom. It was when I began guiding her back to the bathroom that I discovered she must have a fever of at least 109.

The rest of the night was a blur. We came downstairs and made beds on the couch and loveseat. Kathryn wondered why Julia was getting preferential treatment in the form of "better stuff" when SHE was the one who was sick. Her appetite for sibling rivalry was not suppressed even at this hour, nor in this condition, but she fell back to sleep quickly.

Julia, however, did not. She was writhing in pain, such as I have never seen in my young in all my parenting days. She was inconsolable, did not want to be touched, and was begging to go to the hospital. She would doze off momentarily and then wake back up in agony. I woke Jeff and we discussed taking her to the ER about 3:00. About that time she fell asleep for about half an hour. And then woke up. And threw up. Once. Then again. And again. And again. I have since lost track of her tally, but I am very pleased that her aim has improved tremendously since the last time she needed to empty the contents of her stomach. And somewhere in the middle we decided against taking her in to the ER.

On to Kathryn and the headband drawer. Sometime in the night Jeff brought her back upstairs to the sick bed on the floor. She woke when he got up for work at 5:30 and was quite chipper, a little too chipper. She was anxious to get a start on her day, but I would not hear of it and sent her back to her own bed, desperate to fall asleep for even a few minutes before David got up in a couple of hours.

Minutes later there was a gentle little, polite-like knock at my bedroom door. Who could THIS be, I wondered. I opened it to behold Kathryn standing there with hands full, and shirt full, of vomit.

"I threw up in my bed and I don't really like the taste of it on my tongue."

The damage was more extensive and explosive than I could have imagined, but surprisingly not in her bedroom. There was a sizable puddle on her bed, but it was contained in one general area.

But the bathroom. Oh my. On the light switch, on the counter, on the rugs, on the toilet, around the toilet, on the bathtub, on the toilet paper roll. Because she didn't like the taste, of course, and had been frantically trying to grasp a square to wipe her tongue off with. But oddly enough, there was a large pool of it on the opposite end of the counter from the toilet just above the middle drawer which stood ever so slightly ajar. By the time I had arrived to assess the damage, gravity had already run its course, which led right over the edge of the counter and into the drawer.

And what was in that drawer? Headbands. And spongey curlers. Yum!

Kathryn has not thrown up since and is resting comfortably, but Julia has...at least 2 more times.

On the bright side, I had one bathroom cleaned, one load of laundry, and two children bathed by 6:10 this morning.

And I think I might have fallen asleep for 7 or 8 minutes before David woke up.

Julia needs me. I must go.