The Fun Keeps Coming

I will preface this post by swearing that I clean my house. I disinfect my house. We wash our hands. I wipe off doorknobs and lightswitches with lysol wipes frequently. Yet we still KEEP GETTING SICK. What is up with that?!?!?

Monday when I went to pick up Ben from school he was in a great mood, bouncing off the walls like normal, and begging for Kirin to come over and play. I said no to the Kirin request as I really just wanted to go home and hang out with the boys. Ben was fine the entire ride home. As soon as we dropped off the girls and picked up Joey we headed home to put Joe down for a nap, have a snack, and play. I noticed Ben ran straight for the bathroom upon entering the house and after laying down Joey I went to check on Ben. He was in the bathroom shaking on the toilet with massive diarrhea. He was crying hystericaly and saying "I don't like diarrhea. I don't want to be sick." I finally got him calmed down, made him a bed on the couch, and got him to drink some gatorade and settle in to watch the movie, Cars. He immediately fell asleep, which is quite uncharacteristic for Ben, and upon waking up one hour later had a raging fever of over 102 and was miserable. I'll save you the rest of the pitiful diarrhea-filled details and just tell you it was a rough night.

Joey harrassed Ben all night and kept throwing balls at him in an attempt to get him to play. Ben was not amused, nor was Joey when we kept telling him to leave Bub alone.

Tuesday the boys and I just hung out around the house as Ben was still feeling yucky.

Wednesday arrived and that is our day to watch Trey. We again stayed home all day (mommy was getting quite stir crazy at this point). Ben was feeling MUCH better but the diarrhea was still hanging around and making an appearance every couple of hours.

Thursday I decided we (I?) absolutely HAD to get out of the house so we packed up and headed to the Children's Museum. The boys had a blast as always, but it wasn't our most enjoyable trip from my standpoint. First of all, Joey insists on walking everywhere now and it is not easy to keep track of a 2.5 foot little man in the midst of the 1000 field trips with 4 foot tall amazon fourth graders running around. At one point I bent over to pick up Joe, looked up and Ben was gone. I called his name, not yet panicing, and no answer. I started walking around and calling his name slightly louder over the din of the other kids. I suddenly heard a little voice cheerfully yell "mommy! over here." Ben was inside a submarine HIDING FROM ME! Why he thought it was a great idea to do this, I have no idea. Ben has always been awesome at staying close to me when out in public. He has never been a kid who wanders off. I was furious and made him sit down and tell me why I was so mad...I also needed to sit down and get my heart rate to slow down. Not the best start to our time at the museum.

We are now at the point where the boys are into different things so we have to take turns picking activities to participate in while at the museum. We visited their favorite areas--Playscape and the blown glass art area for Joeyand Mummys and Dinosaurs for Ben--we also visited the comic book hero area and new lego exhibit, which were hits with both boys.

Joey was scared of this floor. It reflected the blown glass display from above and I think he thought it was water. He cried and tentatively crawled across it!!! After all the playtime we settled down to lunch. About 10 minutes into lunch Ben told me he "had an accident." The diarrhea had once again reared it's ugly head. After 20 minutes in a bathroom stall with a 4.5 year old and a squirmy 15 month old who was ticked about having his lunch cut short and realizing he was tired and ready for a nap, my nerves were shot and I was ready to get the heck out of there. The rest of Thursday was uneventful. We did go to church for small group night and it was once again successful. Friday Ben really wanted to go to school and after a phone call to his teacher who reassured me that he was welcome to come to school (diarrhea and all) as long as he didn't have a fever and packed some extra underwear, we all headed to school. Joey and I were taking Dean to work as he was planning on spending the day out with friends for the Big Ten Tournament and didn't want to have a car downtown to be tempted later on to drive home. Joey didn't act like he felt well all morning...not eating breakfast, etc. On our way home after dropping Dean off I turned back to check on Joe and he vomited. explosively. violently. everywhere. I pulled over and cleaned him up and then proceeded home. It took over three hours for me to get Joey cleaned up, the carseat cleaned up (worst task I perhaps have ever undertaken), do two loads of barf covered laundry, and to Lysol/disinfect my bathrooms and kitchen and every door knob/light switch in the house. I finally was finished when Joey awoke from a long nap...and threw up again. I called my friend Angela and asked her to pick up Ben from school. She called me about 20 minutes later and said "just to warn you, Ben just threw up in the hallway at school." Good times. Poor Benny was white as a sheet and looking miserable when he got home. I carried him in from the car and stripped his clothes, cleaned him up, and got him into jammies and bed. He took a nap, Joe took a nap, I got some work done. All was quiet for about 2 hours and then both boys awoke with raging fevers and Benny's diarrhea continued. BAAAAAHHHHH. We were actually able to salvage the evening. Tylenol brought the fevers down and there was no more vomiting/diarrhea/yuckiness after about 5:00 p.m. We watched some cartoons, played some games, and read some books and everyone was in bed asleep by 8:30 p.m. Here's to a better weekend...