Germs.  They’re everywhere.  And I think they’re most attracted to kids.  And while kids don’t like to share most things, they seem to love to share germs.  There’s really no way around it.  Which is how we found ourselves as victims to a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad stomach bug which made its way through all four of our children.

 

Tuesday night I went in to check on the 6-month-old before I headed to bed.  I noticed that her sheet was all wet; it was covered in what I thought was spit up.  I lifted her out of the crib and noticed that her pajamas were also soaked.  I called to my husband so that he could change the bedding while I changed the baby’s clothes.  No sooner did I lay the baby down on the changing table than I learned that what was in her crib was not spit up; it was vomit.  As she lay there on the changing table, vomit began erupting from her tiny mouth, shooting, in a rainbown like arch, across the changing table, landing with a splattering thud against the tub of wipes at the other end.  I stood there, frozen, unable to move fast enough to stop it from happening.  I called to my husband that he needed to “get me something”.  I don’t even know what I meant by that.  Either did he.  He came into the room just as she started to spew again.  So much liquid coming out of such a tiny person.  All over her.  All over the changing table.  All over me.  It was everywhere.  And it just kept coming.

 

Vomit for days.  Victim #1.

 

We managed to get the bedding changed and the baby stopped hurling long enough for me to give her a bath because at that point, a bath was really the only option.  Only that wasn’t the end of the vomit.  Poor thing ran out of stuff to puke up and began just heaving.  Nothing sadder than a little baby wretching.

 

This kept up for the most of the next day.  I think she went through 45 outfits and I had to change the sheets on her crib no less than eleven hundred times.  But finally, blessedly, she stopped puking and was able to keep down what she ate.

 

Thursday she was back in school, good as new.  Thursday afternoon, however, I got a call that the two-year-old had woken up from her nap and spewed chunks all over herself.

 

Victim #2.

 

My husband and son had left to go out of town for the weekend so I collected all the girls and we hunkered down in front of the TV, braced for a long afternoon/evening with a sick toddler (who, you bet your sweet hiney, had puked in my car on the way home from school).  She dry-heaved most of the afternoon and evening before I was able to get her to keep down a small amount of water and she settled into her bed for the night.  I got the baby to bed too and offered the 6-year-old the rare opportunity to sleep in my bed with me since my husband was out of town.  Something told me I should bring a puke buket to bed with us, just in case.

 

And sure enough, no sooner had we snuggled into bed than the 6-year-old sat up like a rocket, leaped out of the bed and made it to the toilet before losing her cookies.

 

Victim #3.

 

She spent the next several hours laying next to me in the bed, moaning and thrashing about, unable to get comfortable.  This was interrupted only when she would sit up and yak into the puke bucket that I’d brought to bed with us.

 

At some point around midnight, my husband texted me to say that the 5-year-old had just sat up in bed and puked all over him.  They were staying at a friend’s house which allowed my husband the special opporutnity to frantically do loads of wash in the middle of the night, trying to keep enough clean sheets and towels around to clean up the mess the 5-year-old was spewing all over their guest bedroom.

 

Victim #4.

 

My husband and I were up all night Thursday night texting back and forth about our respective puke-related misery.  Perhaps this is what was meant by the wedding vows “for better or worse”.

 

I spent the entire rest of the weekend silently praying that the bug had passed and that no one else would throw up (my husband and myself included)!

 

This story, right here, is what they should use in high school health classes across the country because if this isn’t an argument for practicing safe sex, I don’t know what is.