Attack of the Germs - The Joys of Parenting

Man. February has been one *itch of a month. It started with Chloe then Sophie coming down with the 24 hour puke your brains out bug - on back to back days. Which, if you have a child you know also equates to back to back nights - with little to no sleep. Then (even though this isn't a germ and it's not about parenting) Shanna got all four wisdom teeth out on the same day and was totally wiped out for a couple of days. Hmmm, come to think of it, there is some parenting in there and ANY of you that have a spouse know that when they are sick (yes, even you too women!) that they're like one of the kids. Of course, I'm happy to do stuff for my honey - including telling her to park her butt and rest. Damn that woman can be stubborn. Of course, she'd need to have some serious constitution to live with me in the first place.

Moving on. So, Shanna just starts to recover on Friday when we notice that Bayley (the almost 9 year old) has crashed out on the sofa in the middle of the day. Oh yah, we noticed that because she only had the energy to freak out a little when Shanna had to call 911 because the baby started choking up blood in the middle of the day. Yah, 911. That was interesting. I was at work, but it was quite the scene from what I heard. No worries, baby is as right as rain. But man that scared the *hit out of us I'll tell you.

Anyway, Bayley crashing mid-day is something that doesn't happen. Saturday, she starts with the puking. And she's nothing like Chloe and Sophie. Poor kid just pukes every hour for 24 hours straight. I was exhausted just taking care of the poor thing. Sunday she finally stopped throwing up, but she was still really hot. We were ready to bring her in - but being that she stopped throwing up and some IB cooled her down, we figured we were out of the woods. Thing was, she was still off her feed - the kid wouldn't eat. This persists through Monday and into Tuesday. Shanna was starting to get upset because she hadn't had the equivalent of a piece of toast since Sunday. Then, Bayley starts spewing again and Shanna takes her into the pediatrician. Hey! We think she's got appendicitis! No fracking way. It was odd, but it wasn't presenting the way the doc thought it should, so he gave her a shot to stop the puking. She came home, slept a little and began to feel fine. Wednesday morning - she actually eats. Yea! Wednesday evening - sorry, my tummy feels weird, has 2 bites of dinner - doesn't even ask for desert. Rut ro.

So now, Wednesday night, we're wondering - do we take her in for the cat-scan? Ah the joys of parenting. Up all night, cleaning up puked on floors, bleaching out buckets that have been puked in at night, dragging kids to doctors, calling 911 and having fire trucks and police cars turn up. Man, what a gig. Of course, the flip side is great. I got hugs all day long on Valentine's Day from my posse of chiquitas!