Lessons from a stomach flu virgin

I was going to blog about my vacation to Breckenridge last week, but I didn't want to bore you all with the details of sleeping til 11:30, the best massage of my life, walking outside with no coat because it was so warm out, eating alone, shopping, watching Mob Wives for the first time (terrifying), getting to know my cousin and her fiance a lot better and having a great time in the process (and they're getting married in Breck in September so they're giving us another reason to go to Colorado this year), visiting with my bestie in Denver and finally buying a rain coat and galoshes which had seriously become practically a bucket list item because it had become so impossible. And of course spending lots and lots and lots of time with my darling husband who I barely saw last year due to his work schedule.

When we left Denver on Saturday, it was a perfect 65 degrees and when we landed in St. Louis Saturday night it was negative 25. And about an hour after we landed, Penny puked all over my mom. So I spent my first night home from the best vacation ever sleeping on top of trash bags next to a ticking time bomb of vomit. It was a wonderful welcome home party.

But miraculously she didn't get sick anymore that night, or all day Sunday, or all day Monday until we were standing on top of a sledding hill and she announced that she had to go potty RIGHT. NOW. When she had seventeen layers of clothing on, all attached with seventeen separate buttons, zippers, and industrial strength snaps. Not to mention that we had to drive home. I could see the terror in her eyes, she could see the terror in my eyes, Harrison saw nothing as he is an unobservant male, but we made it home without incident and it all turned out to be a false alarm. She didn't get sick until right at bedtime of course, was sick all day Tuesday, Harrison woke up in the middle of the morning (6 am- we don't do anything before 7:30 at our house) on Wednesday, and he has been sick ever since.

This was/is my first experience with the stomach flu and vomiting children. Before this week, Harrison has never vomited and Penny had one random incident last March (it started at a birthday party of course) but besides that I've been exceptionally lucky. And I've never been a puker (except during college if you know what I mean), so I really have no idea what to do in the sea of bodily fluids I was soon swimming in. (And I should mention here that Jamie was in New Jersey. For added sympathy. For me.) Here's what I learned:

1- Cover your couch, floor, carpet, any surfaces around the child with towels. I did not do this initially and did four loads of laundry on Wednesday. Next time I'll put trash bags or some kind of plastic sheeting underneath the towels too as an extra protection for my couch. My $200 couch that I got at Famous Barr outlet 10 years ago and has been destroyed by my cats. But it's all I've got, as much as I wish I would have had one this week, there is no back up couch. =( What I need is a  double decker couch like in The Lego Movie! That would be awesome! I'm going to put that on my Amazon wish list.

2- If you child starts to cough, that cough will immediately be followed by a puke. I did not know this and now I do. The more you know.

3- Same thing with tooting. Except it's not puke.

4- Even taking a drink of water can make one puke. How is that possible?

5- Letting your kids watch TV literally all day long makes being a stay-at-home-mom exponentially easier. Why didn't I start this years ago? Although I'm afraid that I'm creating little monsters who will now fake illnesses for more TV time. But any time I turn it off an make them leave the couch, Harry lasts about a half hour and then begs to go lay down. Or has diahrea in the shower. (At least it wasn't during Penny's bath) I feel like Penny is greatly benefiting from Harrison's continued sickness because she is perfectly well yet still gets to watch TV all day. I've tried trapping her in the playroom and forcing her to play something, but that hasn't worked. Sometimes it's nice to be a twin.

You can see their brains turning to mush.

6- We need two TV's in our house. Seriously. I'm gonna lose it if I have to watch one more Bob the Builder movie. I did hide in the kitchen and watch Netflix on the iPad for a while, but then I felt guilty and continued to suffer through Harrison's horrible gas and horrible choice in television show. I gotta get him hooked on Bravo somehow.

Penny is also over Bob the Builder and decided we'd rather watch her dance. But she can only dance right in front of the TV. It's went over real well with Harrison.

7- We also watched Pocahontas (why doesn't Netflix have any decent Disney movies?), and that movie is just terrible. I think I actually saw it in the theater more than once, on purpose, and remember really liking it, actually quoting it as a seventh grader. And if it's not obvious from that admission, I was not in the popular group in school. But come on. Isn't this movie kind of dark for kids? And how does Pocahontas know perfect English right away? And she's always jumping in rivers, but she is immediately dry afterwards? So many questions.

8- Speaking of movies not for kids, we also suffered through The Fox and the Hound and that movie is just the worst. Like Steel Magnolias level sad. Poor Harrison said 'Can't we watch a funny movie?' Is he too young for Dumb and Dumber?

9- Back to the stomach flu, I've been letting the kids eat whatever they want just for the sake of eating and Monday night all Penny ate was a bowl of  Goldfish because her stomach hurt, so after I ate all my dinner I got a cookie and I said 'I'm getting a cookie because I ate all my dinner,' and Penny goes 'I ate all MY dinner!', which was like fifteen Goldfish. So I gave her a cookie. I'm really rocking this parenting thing.

10- And finally, never make cookies the week of your children having the stomach flu because you will eat all of them. Not that I know from personal experience, this happened to a friend of mine. She figured they'll just go to waste and no one else is eating them, and it'd be a shame to let them get stale so she did the brave thing and ate them all. Courage.

Jamie comes home in approximately two hours (but who's counting?) and I have plans for a trivia night with an OPEN BAR tonight, so things are starting to look up. Only four more Bob the Builders to go.