Let the Sickness Begin...

Well, Easter went off without a hitch, but pretty much the minute the clock struck midnight I felt like someone was playing an April Fool's trick on me.  Just shortly after midnight I heard Isla yelling for me, in one of those scared kind of yells that tells you something is wrong or she's not going to put herself back to bed without some help.  I found her in bed, scared out of her mind, having thrown up all over herself and the bed...and still gagging.  It was not pretty.  I quickly grabbed her and ran to the bathroom, and yelled to Mark in the process.  We started to tag team the de-jammy process, soothing, and hair washing process because it was all over her, all the while staying close to the sink for the continued throwing up and gagging we were encountering.  Yuck.  Needless to say, Isla and I were hanging on the couch downstairs watching Tinkerbell with a bucket by 12:30a.  She threw up four times that night in less than 3 hours, went through three jammy changes, several blankets/towels, and I had done two loads of laundry before 3am which is about the time I think the two of us finally fell asleep on the couch.

Mark found us in the am and I wish I could say our girl was to normal but not so much.  We went through the normal routine to get Sawyer ready and off to school so she didn't catch what Isla had.  At this point I had self-diagnosed her as having gastroenteritis caused by a virus.  Turns out I was correct as most of her class came down with Norovirus last week.  Anyway, she threw up another four times in the morning, including once in the car on the way to taking Sawyer to daycare...mainly because all she wanted to do was drink but she couldn't keep anything down.  I eventually had to just be a mean momma and keep her off all food and liquid to let her stomach settle.  Eventually got some liquids in her but she was home from school Monday and Tuesday, and honestly I could have kept her home all week because her eating and digestion weren't back to normal till the weekend.  This weekend we could tell she was feeling better because our little girl was HUNGRY.  I am afraid she probably lost some weight this week, so I didn't bat an eyelash at any request for food she made, including fruit snacks and tortilla chips in the morning.  To top it off, she woke up at 4am last night asking for bananas.  She ate two, went back to bed and ate another when she woke up at 6:30am.  So strange.

Poor thing spent a lot of time like this on Monday and Tuesday...

Anyway, this is clearly me feeling the need to document the relative pain that was our week.  I spent a lot of time cuddling our girl, doing LOTS of laundry, all the while having a ridiculously busy week of work that couldn't be put off and meant a lot of late nights working for me while the family slept.  I was a bit paranoid that I was going to catch her virus and get sick and dehydrated and go into labor early so I was a machine with the hand-washing and disinfecting, and am happy to say never got sick.  In hindsight I am sick of being pregnant and thinking this baby surely must be bigger than normal and would have been fine if that happened right?  Mark did not fair as well, and got sick.  While he didn't throw up like Isla, he was definitely sick and by the last count I saw he'd lost 8 lbs.  Because of this, I spent several hours on Saturday disinfecting the house for real, including bathrooms and sheets, etc.  Sawyer seems to have caught either a cold or allergies - not sure yet which - but no stomach flu which is super.  Biggest problem with Sawyer is actually that neither Mark or I have had the energy to keep her busy, and the girl needs a camp director.  She constantly needs to be doing something, but also doing something on her terms.  She had to go outside and play soccer by herself, but had to be the front yard, and not the back so I ended up watching her from the living room couch.  We played Candy Land and my god I have a little cheating, sore loser on my hands.  Clearly we need to practice games a bit more at home because there were tears each time she lost, and she picks up 2-3 cards at a time so she can determine which is the best one for her.  Clever, and yet so not something I was going to let her get away with.  Perhaps this will be one of the things we'll work on this summer.

Another reason I'm looking forward to this baby being born - even walks and trips to the park feel like a marathon.  After cleaning, grocery shopping, and making lunch this weekend I had to lay on the couch for several hours because my back hurt so much.  I did manage to take both girls for a walk on Sunday it was so nice out but honestly we didn't go far and I was tired when we got back.  I can't wait to just be able to strap this baby to me and do stuff without that exhaustion.  Besides...Sawyer and I have some exercise to get into this summer - here's the infamous running outfit I mentioned in my last post.  She even took it for a spin on the treadmill the other night.  We'll have to pick her up some real running shoes so she doesn't hurt her feet, but otherwise I think she's looking forward to it.  We have a nice little track near our house that I think she'd like to go to.

At any rate, it feels good to be at the start of a new week.  I have watched Tinkerbell about 20+ times in the last 7 days (no joke) and hoping we can get the kids to take a tv break now that they're feeling better.  I also finished the big push at work that was killing me last week, and now it should be just regular kind of busy-ness.  Finally, our big master bath remodel project kicked off today.  We cleared out all contents of the bathroom and my closet last night, and the guys were here bright and early today for demo day...and demo they did.  The last thing to take out tomorrow is the tub but otherwise the room is peeled back to the studs and base floor already.  I'll do a separate post eventually on the before, during, and after of the remodel but it's a month long+ project so patience please.