Woes From the Sick Ward

I honestly thought I was getting the bug this morning. Stomach pains whenever I ate anything. But so far, so good. I think I have more mental issues than anything else, but we knew that - no need to elaborate.

Drew was the first to be hit on Tuesday, Ethan followed Saturday afternoon, Trent on Saturday night when we found him sleeping in a puddle of his own vomit, and Cameron succumbed around noon today. (Sunday) You should smell our house. Whew! That's what vomit and diarrhea for 6 days times four kids will do. Blame the laundry pile. Andrew and I have nothing to wear because we can't get past the sick laundry long enough to get the regular done.

Ethan asked his Dad and Grandpa to give him a blessing last night, so he's actually felt great all day. I can't get him to tell me what's going on in the bathroom, and he's so modest that I can't bring myself barge in on him to inspect the contents of the toilet when he's done. He goes off to school tomorrow.

Cameron seems to be on the mend. We're going on seven hours with no vomit, and he learned the valuable lesson today that when you have the stomach flu, you should never trust a fart. He will be staying home tomorrow to give him 24 hours sans vomit before chucking him back into the world.

Trent is past the worst of it and just needs to overcome the diaper filling issues. He is eating, sleeping and acting normally otherwise. Thank goodness.

Drew is still my problem child. Always making things exciting. We haven't had any vomit from him since Thursday, but he continues to have diarrhea. About four or five times a day we are alerted to it's reappearance by the stench, and his poor, little bottom is speckled from cheek to cheek, top to bottom with the red bumps of a nasty rash. All that acidity had to catch up to him eventually. Baby powder is working best to combat that. The real issue with Drew is his appetite. All day today he ate one bowl of soup and half a slice of toast. That is it. I tried everything else from pizza to crackers to MnM's to bananas and the kid will not eat. I actually stuck him on the scale today to make sure he still registered. So I'm pushing the liquids, but Drew will only drink Sprite. Figures, huh? Very little water, no milk (which is probably a good thing), no juice, not even popsicles. So he's had two or three cans of soda today. I have no desire for this child to turn into me, so the kids don't get soda very often at all. But since I'm trying to keep him hydrated, I'm pretty much letting him have anything he will drink. If Sprite is it, then that's better than nothing. But if he thinks that that is going to continue after the diarrhea clears up, then he has a rude awakening coming his way.

Seriously hoping that this will be the last posting about any kind of excretions for a long, long time.