Oops

I sent my two big guys off to school this morning with some trepidation. Neither of them had vomited yet. I was wondering if it might strike at school.

One of them was performing in a trumpet group with two other kids from his class at the local Salvation Army church morning tea today. The Salvos are conveniently located next door to their school, and the principal of the school is a member of the church so they do quite a few performances over there.

Sadly, vomiting struck at probably the most inconvenient moment it could have. Just as they were on the stage getting ready to play. I was told he had to run off stage and make for the nearest toilet. He nearly got there. But not quite. The floor around the toilet cubicle got covered. And the principal ended up having to clean it all up afterwards.

I didn't hear the full story when he was brought home by my husband at lunchtime. All I knew was that he'd had to run off stage just as they were about to start and that he'd missed the toilet. He told me he didn't know who cleaned it up. So it was slightly embarrassing when the deputy principal called me later to tell me about it. Apparently the principal thought it was just nervousness that caused him to do it. So I then had to confess that the evil gastro was making its way through our house and that I had sent my kids off to school even though I knew it could be coming. Oh dear. Caught out.

The deputy principal was amused, I think, because she usually takes the kids to most of these musical performances and thus is presumably left with any of these kinds of unpleasant cleaning jobs. She seemed to be very happy that the principal had to take one for the team this time. I'm guessing cleaning up vomit probably isn't top of the list of his regular jobs.

Sometimes you just have to laugh. It was kind of funny. Hopefully he'll be able to recover to perform again in future and the principal (also his trumpet teacher) won't hold it against him. But it's one of those moments that I'm not too sorry to have missed...

We're all sick

It is in no way pleasant to have a vomiting bug in your house. Especially when you are the first one to get it. Then you just know that everyone else is also going to be vomiting before too long. And then you are going to have to clean it all up.

Just so everyone knows, "you" in this post really means "I." And I am really not very good with vomit clean-ups. I rely on lots of assistance from my so-much-more-patient-than-I-am husband to get me through them.

Sigh. There's never a good time for this kind of sickness to strike but this week is a particularly bad week for it to descend on us. Praying for some strength and energy to deal with the onslaught. One child is already down, three more kids and a husband still to go.

All is well....

The surgery is done. And my gorgeous girl sounded like she is back to her happy self when I spoke to her on the phone earlier this evening. Just the follow up appointment tomorrow afternoon to get through and then they will be coming home.

Prayers have been answered. It always feels like a bit of a lottery waiting to hear how kids cope with a general anaesthetic. Praying that the outcome for the eyes is going to be good too.

Unfortunately, one of the kids left behind with me has developed a vomiting bug. I was woken at midnight last night to the familiar sound that all parents dread. So he has spent most of the day alternating between sleeping and moaning on the bed/couch/floor in the bathroom. The time spent moaning seems to be outweighing the time spent sleeping

I generally find that I can manage sick kids a lot better if I can get a bit of respite from all the moaning. I always look forward to seeing my husband arrive home in the evening, but today was a day on which I would normally be desperately waiting for 5.30 to come around so he could shoulder some of the moaning burden. Knowing he wasn't going to be arriving was tough for both me and the sick person. So until tomorrow there's only me. Sadly, my sympathy stocks are starting to run low. He is sleeping now, so I had better start praying for patience.

Being sick....before and after having kids....

Before having kids, being sick meant taking a day or two off work, foraging in the fridge for whatever I could handle the thought of eating, sleeping for ages, maybe even reading a book or watching a DVD or two as the fog of being unwell cleared away.

Not these days.

I'm still not feeling great. I've been mildly unwell for several days, but yesterday afternoon my sore throat and stuffy head took a nosedive into something more full-on. As in struggling to move off the couch, unable to face the thought of the afternoon round of jobs kind of sick. And Rowan was sick too. As in not keen to feed, constantly whingeing and miserable kind of sick.

The difference between being sick before kids and being sick now is that somehow, you still need to keep functioning so the rest of the family can stay afloat. When I finally summoned the strength to get outside to bring the washing in yesterday afternoon (three days worth because we're catching up from being away over the weekend, and a lot of it needing the tumble dryer), Rowan pulled the folded up playpen over on top of him while he was crawling around exploring and whingeing. He needed a lengthy cuddle to sort that out, plus another few minutes to offload him onto one of the bigger kids to stop him from getting into anything else. Having to put some kind of semi-healthy meal together for all the less sick people still had to be done even though most food is tasting like cardboard to me at the moment. Fortunately my husband arrived home from work as the dinner was almost ready to put in the oven, so he could take over with the evening routine (much appreciated, Chris, if you're reading!).

It's hard to stay patient when your head feels like it's about to explode. Not that it's all that easy for me even when I'm not sick. But that pre-kids ability to crawl off into the cosy cave under the doona and recover is a distant memory now. Now if I'm lucky enough to manage to get into bed when I'm sick to start with, I'm likely to be clinging the whole time to the 8 month old's ankle to stop him escaping. And keeping an ear out for what the two year old might be getting into.

A bit sick and tired

That's all. Not much brain space to think of stuff to blog.

I'll just hang around other people's blogs commenting for a bit. See you when I'm feeling better.

Cleaning up vomit in the car

If you are a parent, this is highly likely to happen to you sometime. Hopefully not too often because it's not fun to deal with the clean-up, especially if your child is too young to be helpful and vomits in their carseat or onto the floor, rather than into a container or a bag.

The smell is the worst part. It goes away eventually but until it does, getting into the car after it's been closed up for a while is not pleasant.

We usually try to disguise the smell using one of those cardboard odour eaters that you hang from the rear vision mirror. I like the vanilla smelling ones the best. Today Coles was sold out of vanilla ones so I chose an "ocean" scented one shaped like a thong. But sadly it doesn't smell anything like an ocean.

I picture the smell of an ocean being fresh with just a hint of saltiness. This is more like the smell of a toilet cleaner (combined with the vomit smell I'm trying to remove).

At least I know it will get better. But the next few weeks of travelling in the car might be less than enjoyable.

Some days are just about survival really

Today I woke up feeling much better...except that I had developed an interesting post viral lower back ache. At least that's what I think it was. I couldn't remember moving awkwardly or anything, it just suddenly seemed to be quite painful when I tried to move around. Maybe I slept in the same position for too long or something.

This made for an interesting day as Chris was working and I was taking the kids to check out the markets where we are playing next weekend, followed by lugging a heavy bag of library books back to the library. All of that took place with Rosie being worn in the sling on my front. Somehow I survived and when I made it back home I called Chris at work (he is a physio) to see if he could bring a TENS machine home with him.

So all afternoon I lay on the couch reading library books (fortunately this activity was also keeping the kids occupied) and watching the cricket on TV, in agonising pain every time I tried to change positions, waiting in anticipation of the pain relief that was on its way.

Such enormous relief when I heard him pull into the driveway...only to discover he couldn't find any TENS machines at work. What kind of physio department has no TENS machines?? He gave it a little rub and told me the best thing to do was keep moving so it didn't stiffen up any further.

So I went grocery shopping (!). At least that could happen minus the three kids. And it wasn't too bad walking around the shops, even with the lifting and carrying I had to do. It's still painful, but I had help with unloading when I came home. And I can still manage to sit at the piano to play all the songs for tomorrow morning's service.

I'll be thankful that I survived and that it hasn't gotten any worse. And that now I do have the 24 hour physio available to fix it up. Usually when my back is painful he does a massage thing that hurts like crazy at the time, but then eases the pain heaps.

I don't like to grumble

But I do it a lot so maybe I really do?

Anyhow, I will try to keep this short. I really really don't like being sick and having a toddler to run around after. While I was dozing off on the bed before, she managed to shut herself into the toilet.

On the being grateful side of things, at least she hadn't managed to pull the toilet brush out of its holder and touch it, or to drop her blankie into the toilet bowl.

So it could have been worse.

I hope I feel better soon. Too much music practice still to be done. And the timing is bad. Chris has his work Christmas function tonight so he was planning to go straight from work to ten pin bowling and then dinner without coming home. And he is also working tomorrow.

Pray for patience here.