Just Grab the Cereal Bowl

Warning: This story contains descriptions of child sickness that some may find disturbing. But I have to write it as it is therapeutic for those of us who have to clean it up. ;-)

The latest in the health saga at our house involves Owen who is back on the sick train. He has had the congestion/deep wet cough thing going for a week, but that is par for the course with little ones. On Monday however he added projectile vomiting and diarrhea to his repertoire. Just lovely.

That night he was all ready for his bath when he hurled all over the bathroom floor. Nana and Amy cleaned him up and put him off to bed. My thought was that all the congestion was coming up and going into his stomach, making his stomach feel extra queasy. During the night though we found out it was worse than that. Owen woke up several times crying that he was sick. Amy would hear him through the baby monitor and shake me out of a deep slumber. "Go! Go! Go!" she would shout.

I would tear off out of the bed kicking the dog in the head and banging into the walls along the way, not quite processing why I was running until I was about halfway up the steps. Owen was typically out of his bed crying and getting sick at his stomach by the time I arrived. Before too long Owen had it coming out of both ends.

Yesterday I came home to news that Owen had proclaimed to his grandmother, "Nana, I pooped in my socks." As odd a statement as that was, he had in fact achieved the feat. Let's just say Elaine did several loads of laundry yesterday. By last night though we adults were prepared. Owen sat at the dinner table with a big blue bucket next to his chair. If something was coming out, we were going to catch it. The problem was he thought it was too much fun to cry wolf that he was getting sick, and he became too easily distracted with the bucket to eat his dinner. As the night wore on his claims of feeling sick were disregarded, and he eventually proclaimed that his stomach felt better.

This morning Owen seemed to be his normal self and claimed he was no longer sick. So we proceeded with the morning routine to go to school. On the way out the door however, Owen began shouting that he was sick again. Since Amy & Elaine had been subjected to cries of wolf the night before I don't think they took Owen that seriously. Unfortunately he promptly proceeded to throw up all over the kitchen -- all over the cabinets, all over the refrigerator, everywhere. Amy's gut reaction was to grab the first thing she saw to catch it which happened to be a glass cereal bowl. That however was equivalent to trying to put a thimble in front of a fire hose. Elaine grabbed Owen taking him to the sink, and today's round of clean-up commenced all over again.

All we can say is thank goodness Nana is here during times of sickness. And too bad they don't make bigger cereal bowls.