barf + blizzard = a party!

Well, it happened. We got that nasty stomach bug, despite my best efforts to ward it off. I will say that I'm pretty sure the cranberry juice worked for Phil since he and Ruby were the only two to avoid getting ill, and I never actually got sick myself, just had stomach lava for a couple of days. (Kudos if you get the stomach lava reference.) I was religiously using all of my voodoo potions as well as surgical masks and latex gloves but when you're being barfed on without warning it's sort of hard to avoid. Iris got it the worst, the full GI gamut including a raging fever all day yesterday, and Ocean was a little worse than me but not terrible so I'm inclined to think all the grape juice we pumped into his system once Iris got sick did a little something to make things a bit milder for him.

Yesterday was the hardest day since Iris and I were up all night sick on Monday. I got an hour of sleep and Iris was so miserable all day with the fever and aches and cried every time she opened her mouth to say something. I want to watch Lightning McQueen! Waaaaaaah! I'm fweeeeeezing! Waaaaaaaah! I love elephants! Waaaaaaah! Seriously. I'm not making fun of her... it was just so pitiful. I know she was wildly uncomfortable and slightly delirious from the fever. And as much as I hated seeing her so sad I was relieved to be able to check her tears to make sure she was hydrated enough. Boy, was she.

So we stayed upstairs, Iris in front of the TV, laid up in her kid-sized recliner covered with her lovies. Ocean joined us when he started complaining of a tummy ache mid-afternoon. Ruby and Phil hung out downstairs while us sickies huddled around the DVD player in a pile of blankets, waiting for the snow to start falling. I finally gave Iris a dose of Tylenol once I knew she could keep it down and she made a remarkable improvement, even wolfing down a bowl of applesauce. Awwwww yeah... give it up for the BRAT diet, yo.

I spent last night on the floor in the playroom with Ocean, Iris and Ruby's monitor. Over the last couple of nights I guess I've gotten hyper-sensitive to the sound of kids stirring because at one point I woke to find myself wandering aimlessly around Ocean's room and didn't remember going in there. Weird. I sent myself back to my floor-bed and was able to sleep semi-soundly off-and-on until 8 this morning when I was awakened by Iris holding her wrist over my face saying, "Mommy! This bracelet is too BIG!" She wasn't crying so I knew it was going to be a better day.

And it was, in fact, a much better day. I even managed to sanitize all surfaces. The laundry, however, is a DEFCON 1 situation. I'm now working my way through eight loads that have been prioritized based on what touched it, who touched it, when it was touched and how gross it smells. So that's what I'll be up to for the next 24 hours.

Not how I imagined I'd be spending the Blizzard of 2011 (which, by the way, is a little bit of an overstatement if you ask me, but I also haven't had to go out in it) but I'm thankful we're all feeling better and that the two baby immune systems weren't affected.

On with the laundry.