Sick Kids are the Best Lesson

So we are going on day 5 of sick kids. It is a strange sickness. Our two boys randomly puke, almost without warning. They almost never complain about feeling yucky. They have just as much energy as always, and are typically in very good moods all day long. Their appetites are normal…and then one of them will puke. The vomit is typically followed by some supernatural self-aware diarrhea that actually tries to reason with us while we are cleaning up. After these bouts of illness, the boys are fine, happy as can be not even caring that they just crapped out proof that evolution occurs in the human gastrointestinal system.

Last night it was Thor's turn. He woke up coughing around 2am and had a hard time going back to sleep, then at 3 am, he puked all over his bed. Emily changed the sheets and got the bath ready while I tried to keep Thor awake (since he had gotten the puking over with, he was ready for a nap).

When my alarm went off this morning for work at 6am, Thor was up and ready to go, happy as could be. I got him out of his crib and noticed he was a little wet. Understandable since I had put his diaper on at 3:15 am without really caring if it was on backwards, forwards inside out, or even covering the vital areas. I take Thor into our room so he can get his morning dose of Little Einsteins and realize that Thor is wet on his back, not his front, that is a tricky accomplishment for a boy no matter how the diaper is attached.

I start to change Thor and realize that this is no normal pee-leak, this is full-on baby Armageddon. Thor is literally painted brown with fecal matter from chest to knees (thank goodness for full-body pajamas, even his footies were holding little pools of the feces flood). And not only is he covered with poop, the crap is singing a 4-part acappella version of Monty Pythons “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” (there might have been some choreography too, but I didn’t stick around to find out).

At this point I am in a panic "EMILY - BATH NOW!!" to which Emily quickly obliged. Thor was, of course, happy as ever, played in the bath for 20 minutes as if he had not just spent the last XX hours up to his neck in borg-shit. Unfortunately for Emily, she is, by default, in the same situation with no end in sight.

While I have been aware and involved in the majority of this illness, Emily has shouldered the brunt of the random acts of violence, and the ensuing clean-up because work has been rather busy for me.

So now it is Asher’s turn to blow, like Old Faithful, if anyone wants to come by around 3:30, it is a great show, and the encore usually starts about 5:00pm we just ask that you please clean up after yourself.

Every once in a while I get a much bigger glimpse of how bad Emily’s daily grind can be, and I think, “man, am I glad I get to go to work today.”

Baby – I love what you do for me. And those two boys love it to, even if they don’t know it yet. Hang in there, they will either get better soon, or die. Either way you don’t have to clean up vomit or try to reason with really stinky, semi-intelligent poo for too much longer. I should be home around 10:00pm (or earlier if you can get the kids to sleep before then).