The McMullens shared a beautiful gift with my children this week. The flu. That's right - constant fluids from every imaginable orifice for about 17 straight hours.
It started with Abby around 4am on Saturday. Let me just tell you, she is a champion puker. Everyone should wish their kids could vomit like this one. She calmly says, "I think I have to throw up," and proceeds to walk to the bathroom and do her business neatly and quitely in the toilet. As I'm kneeling with her, holding hair and forehead, she takes a break in the middle to make a little joke or tell me a story...then turns back to the toilet to finish up. I'm not kidding. When she's done, she rinses, smiles, and goes back to bed. Bizarre, but quite pleasant.
Jacob is another story. His adventure began closer to noon, and his personality is significantly different in these situations. He apparently thinks that NOT going to the bathroom when you feel like getting sick may actually prevent the hurling from taking place. Giving in and rushing to the toilet is equivalent to condoning his body's response to the virus, and he's not about to do that. So with him, you have to watch for body language. Pained looks on his face, moans and groans, the occassional glance toward the bathroom...all signals that Jacob is considering the fact that he knows he needs to ralph, but refuses to accept it. On more than one occassion I had to physically carry him to the toilet. I then assume the appropriate position (kneeling, hand on forehead) only to have him fight me off! "Get off me! You're holding me down!!" He apparently believes that, by holding his head near the toilet, I am forcing him to throw up. Interesting. I offer him a kleenex when he's done and he yells at me, "I don't want it!" and after the first or second heave (clearly only in the middle of the process) he attempts to run from the bathroom, exclaiming, "I'm DONE!!" only to start to wretch just outside the bathroom door...Ahhh, kids.
Fortunately for me and my lack of mercy gifts, this flu only lasted about 8 hours per kid. Thank you, Jesus. Now, if Adam and I can just manage to stay healthy...
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Now the trick is teaching Jacob to say the words to "Baby Got Back" WHILE ralphing! THAT would be AMAZING!
ReplyDeleteSorry you're having to deal with all that. For some reason, Jessica would always drink the wildest color of soda before spewing. Of course, she would walk to MY side of the bed, say "Daddy, I think I have to throw...: and before the last word passed her lips, everything else would.
Bless you, child. Bless you.
We share everything with your family so we had to share this one too.
ReplyDeleteSorry guys, lets just hope and pray the adults stay healthy.
You are telling me this AFTER I spent 10 minutes yesterday listening to your daughter tell me stories 2" from my face?
ReplyDeleteI thoroughly sanitized her before bringing her to the birthday party. Nothing a scalding hot bath and some Clorox can't take care of... ;)
ReplyDeleteOh Becky, I can't tell you the numnber of times I'd lay in bed and PRAY that God would somehow find a way for me NOT to get it. With 7 kids puking, there was never anyone to take care of good old mom. You know, it miraculously seemed to work!!!
ReplyDeleteSorry Beck - I have had that specific strain of the flu growing in my basement laboratory for some time now. I just wanted to try it out on my kids - never imagining that they would release it to the world! It was only supposed to cause one episode of puking and then leave them fully normal. I call it the "Get me out of school but allow me to have a cool day at home" virus. I was going to market it to the world and become rich and famous. Crap - back to the drawing board...
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