Haz-Mat Team

Warning, this post is not for the faint in heart or weak stomached. If you currently have no children, this post may put that final nail in your not-wanting-kids coffin.

I have always wondered how I would handle my kids throwing up and how much Stephen would help out . . . . well now I know.
It all started last Tuesday . . . . Ada got the stomach flu that night that has been ravaging the Seattle area. The next morning she seemed a lot better (she ate 6 bowls of Rice Krispies), but I still had to cancel my plans to the Children's museum with Mom's Group and the 3 hrs work and babysitter I had scheduled. Wow, now I know what it's like to say "I can't come to work, my kid is sick and I can't ask someone else to watch her." That bites (especially when you work 3 times a MONTH).
Good thing I canceled because right when I would have been working, I started throwing up. And then the other stuff started too . . . . and it was all continuous until about 11pm that night. I threw up 7 times that night. I thought I was going to die. I listened to Ada throw up again at the dinner table, same as the night before and Stephen handle it all by himself this time.
The next day Stephen stayed home from work and Odessa started throwing up every 30 minutes for a while that morning. Problem with 20 month and 3 yr olds- they don't get the toilet or bowl thing very well. Stephen followed her around holding a bowl since mostly I laid around moaning.
By that afternoon she seemed better and Stephen went to his Dentist appt. Of course that was when she actually ate some food and threw up big time- into the fridge. Yes, that's right. She threw up into the fridge, hitting most of the shelves and vegetable bins with amazing accuracy. As I threw her into the bath tub and tried to clean the fridge, I had to make a sprint to the bathroom myself. Odessa sat in her bathwater and watched me, saying "Oh mommy, you're not feeling too good, you need to go lie down." Yah, thanks Odie.
At this point it was Thursday night and we had to decide if we were going to try and go on our long-planned trip to Vancouver BC that weekend. Stephen had Friday and Monday off and so we had made a lot of plans and paid for hotel reservations through Hotwire.
Stephen got sick himself that evening after his appointment and it was his turn to lie around moaning. He didn't get it as bad as the rest of us, thank goodness. Even though he was sick, he still insisted it was too depressing to stay home moping another day and that we ought to try and go. Since the girls had stopped throwing up during the day and I was better, it seemed like an ok thing. For some reason, they would still wake up in the middle of the night and throw up. This was a huge mess, as you can imagine. Often it meant a bath and washing out sheets, stuffed animals, making a pile of laundry for the morning. We prayed they would stop doing this on the trip.

We took a long time Friday getting out of town, making sure everyone was feeling better. We brought a bowl and towels in the car just in case. We got to Vancouver around 7pm or so. Ada had eaten a lot of PB&J in the car, and once we got to the hotel room, she launched it forth. Sheesh. We cleaned it up pretty easily and went out to find some dinner. Here is the strange thing- the girls would act basically normal before and after throwing up. There was no good warning, and no good reason to sit around, because they immediately wanted to eat and be (fairly) active afterwards. It was so strange. They were definitely not their usual selves, but so almost normal, it kept deceiving us.
The place that worked best was a Pizza joint with rows of seats by the windows that made personal pizzas. I ordered something blandish for the girls. We watched streams of people pass by the windows as we waited for the pizza. It arrived with Sprite for the girls. Ada took one sip and threw up on me and her (she was sitting on my lap). Stephen immediately slid their pizza onto one of our boxes and held the box in front of her (he had been imaging the night before how to avoid a big mess at a restaurant, so he was ready with ideas). She proceeded to put on a show for the passersby by throwing up into the pizza box 2 more times. It was horrible, horrible, horrible. We giggled for 10 minutes about it in bed that night, such horrible advertising we did for their pizza! They didn't have a bathroom and all the staff spoke different languages- they did not get what we needed at all. It was such a fiasco. Between wet napkins and wipes from the diaper bag, we got cleaned up. Poor Ada had to wear a smelly damp shirt the whole way back to the hotel. Odessa ate well, so we figured she was feeling ok.
Maybe I had better try to shorten this story up. 3:30am- Odessa throws up. We spend an hour cleaning her and the bed up (I refuse to make a pile of sheets and blankets filled with throw-up for the housecleaning crew). The next morning, we have the BEST housekeeper ever come in- she makes such a non-issue out of it that we feel like we can stay another night and I tip her the only money in my wallet ($5 US Dollars) which I have never done before in my whole life. She is so reassuring and leaves us extra sheets, pillows, towels (the BIG ones! tip= big hotel towels).
We eat all our meals in our room- one of us goes and gets take out from one of the many restaurants in the area or we eat groceries out of our mini fridge. That night for dinner we only let the girls have bland things like crackers, applesauce and yogurt. We line Odessa's bed with towels that night. It's Valentines and we decide to rent a movie on the TV and Stephen runs and gets us gelato. We are 10 minutes into the movie and our gelato and Odessa wakes up and throws up again. Valentine night ruined. Again, we debate for the nth time if we should go home early. Ada remains throw-up free for the second day in a row. Sunday night we are tired of eating in and decide to eat the one nice meal of the trip at an expensive restaurant. The girls seem good, eating their veggie plates before their real food arrives. Suddenly Odessa erupts and I realize we've ruined several people's nice evening, including our own. Stephen takes her to the bathroom himself and cleans her up, bringing her back in just her tights and parka, her dress in a plastic bag. We take our meals to go and eat another luke-warm meal in our room with plastic utensils. Another nice evening, ruined.
That night I wake at 3am and hover over the girls for an hour, listening to their stomachs rumble, their breathing get faster or slower and I just know I will be right there with the plastic lined wastebasket in time to catch the mess before it turns into a huge problem. I lay down 5 times, only to leap up again each time one of them mumbles or sighs loudly. I drive Stephen crazy, making him switch sides of the bed with me so I will be closer to the girls. I finally fall asleep, convinced my paranoia is ruining me.
Yesterday was nice, we swam in the pool and then got some lunch on our way out of town. Odessa didn't want to eat lunch and all of sudden she gagged- Stephen was whip-like fast with the bowl and our one in-car mess was no mess at all. Whew. I can't imagine a car seat clean up. We went to the Vanouver Zoo and were home in Seattle by 6:30pm. Last night we slept like babies, not really caring wether the girls made a mess or not- at least we were home! Of course they didn't. It looks like this haz-mat team can hang their hard hats up for a little while.
We did have a lot of fun in Vancouver, despite the craziness. All the real trip details to come . . . .