What a Weekend

I was so looking forward to my three day weekend but things quickly changed. It was a typical Saturday morning with Ryan at gone. Ryan headed to town to fix the Ford. This was after he thought that I could take him to get the Ford which was out in the timber. I quickly reminded him that with two kids, we’d have to take the car and the car might not make it through the corn field. Jerry and kids came over and gave Ryan a ride to the Ford. Ally stayed at the house and played with Scott. Scott got his usual breakfast – a nutri grain bar, which he didn’t even finish. I just figured it was because Ally was there to play. After about half an hour, Ally went home. I changed his diaper and put big boy underwear on him. Every ten minutes after that we stopped for a potty break. I even tried the cheerio trick but he wanted to fish the cheerios out and eat them instead of pee on them. The next thing I remember is lunch time. I was desperately trying to get my house clean (which is hard to do when you go potty every ten minutes) on Saturday so I could enjoy the remainder of my long weekend. Trying to make the best of my time, I put Scott in his high chair in the living room to allow him to eat lunch and watch a movie while I folded clothes. He is the SLOWEST eater and don’t pay much attention as I’m in no hurry and his slow eating is buying time and entertaining him. However, after some time, I see that he’s finished a full cup of juice and not touched his burrito. The kid is engaged in Veggie Tales and nothing else, almost like a trance. So, I remind him several times that he needs to eat and he continues the trance until I pause the movie. This gets his attention and he begins to whine. After about half the burrito is eaten, he stops eating and continues whining – which goes over real well when I’m not appreciative of a whiny child. So, I treat him like a baby and begin feeding him. And after about the second tiny bite he took, he puked! Yes, my child puked. Kinda gross but I’ve seen a lot worse. It was mostly [hope you like details] watery and it was contained on the tray of his high chair. Fortunately his burrito was in my hand and it was saved. I figured he’d just overdone the running around like a crazy boy earlier in the morning and it was no big deal. He does this occasionally and was acting normal. He took two more tiny bites and then wouldn’t finish it. I’m such a good mom – who in the world forces their kid to eat right after they puke?

Fast forward a few hours. Scott has peed through his underwear and I’m a bit frustrated but he’s two. There was just a little bit of urine so I decide that he can just wait a few minutes and feel the wetness. I’m finally having lunch. All of a sudden I notice that Scott has peed AGAIN. Yes, we’d just discussed this issue and the importance of telling me when he has to pee. This time it has soaked through the underwear and sweats and he’s trying to clean it up with a broom. Okay, I saw him cleaning with the broom a few minutes before as I scarfed my food but he likes to clean so I thought nothing of it. But when he came in the kitchen and announced that he was cleaning his mess, I had to investigate. There was a puddle in the lving room on the wood floor that he’s kindly swept up and spread everywhere. Now that I’m finishing up dishes, Scott is forced to stay in the kitchen with me where he can’t cause a bigger mess. Ryan comes home. [Thanks to Chris and $60 later the Ford is fixed. Bethany is such an easy going kid and I’m so thankful for that, especially on a day like this one.] Ryan wants to go back to the timber to load wood. I actually enjoy that on occasion and volunteer to go help. We head upstairs for a quick bath for Scott and to get the kids dressed for the unseasonably warm weather. As I pull off his wet underwear, I notice something. Did I mention that I smelled something earlier but didn’t feel anything when I patted him down? There’s some brown in the chones. Yipee, not only has my child puked, peed through his clothes, smeared it all over the floor, now he’s also pooped in his underwear. As I pull his clothes off, I see that the mess is larger than I realize. Slightly disgusted, I let the bath water out of the tub as this one will require a shower, not just a bath. He’d not only pooped in his underwear but the poop had managed to slide down his leg, smear all over and hang out at the cuff of his sweats. Thank the good Lord for an elastic gathered cuff!!! I shower off the colorful stuff and then give him a quick bath. After dressing Scott, I begin hand washing poopy clothes. Okay, its one thing to wash poopy clothes for Bethany that are typically very liquidy, but for Scott, it was gross! Sparing some of the details, I’ll just say that I got the clothes clean and headed to my own room.

I’m in the room changing quick while Ryan and Scott play airplane on the computer. As I walk into the room with the boys, Scott, bored, starts to slide off Ryan’s lap. And then begins round 2 of the puking. This time all over the wood floor. The poor kid has no clue what’s going on or how to stop it. He managed to cover about 30 square feet of floor, himself and a bit of my shoes. To the bath we go AGAIN and Ryan begins to clean. So much for loading wood! Now I know he’s sick and am not going to ask him to eat anything. I ask Ryan to stay home as I’m not feeling the greatest anymore either – probably a result of washing pooped in clothes and cleaning up puke several times. Ryan heads to the store for Sprite as we cover the bed for puke protection, turn a movie on and lounge. The remainder of the afternoon includes intermittent drinks of sprite and eventually a few crackers which he puked up. Starting over with the liquid and eventually we move to a little apple sauce since the child was begging for food. Again, he gave us reason to launder our bedding. All in all, I think he puked five times usually within 40 minutes of eating a solid food. We put Scott to bed in his new Cars pajamas which he was excited about and finally made it to bed ourselves, with clean sheets and less than normal blankets. About 20 minutes later, we hear a rustling over the monitor as Scott crawled out of bed. He’s the cutest thing in the world when he walks in the room with his blanket in tow saying “mommy, I’m awake. Snuggle in your bed?” And again, it was cute, even though he’s done in multiple times now. Only this time, I notice the top of his new pajamas look like there’s something around the shoulders – either lint or puke. And yes, it was a little bit of the remainder of apple sauce that was still in his stomach. It apparently didn’t bother him at all, nor was it a big deal because we didn’t hear it over the monitor. However, at this point, I decided that Scott would camp out on our floor for the night. Ryan layered blankets on the floor and we covered him up and finished watching our movie.

One story, I must include occurred during the middle of the night. He would occasionally make random comments in his sleep which I quickly picked up on and began ignoring. Only this one time, he called out to me and I heard a thud. Again, he said “mommy” followed by a thud. And hardly awake, I about laughed. I sat right up and answered him back. This continued two more times before I was in the floor pulling him out from under our bed. The kid is a wiggle worm and had managed to get his upper body under our bed while asleep. He must have woke up, not known where he was, tried to move and found himself hitting his head on the under side of our bed. It was hilarious. I moved him back onto the pile of blankets, covered him up and he fell right to sleep as I crawled back into my own bed.

I know this is getting lengthy and detailed but part of me wants to record the details so that I can embarrass my son with the memories later on in life.

Sunday morning I made a pad on the couch for Scott to lay on and watch TV. I’m not a fan of the TV babysitter idea but the child was feeling miserable and it was a good way to entertain him and keep his mind busy on something besides food. Ryan was thoughtful and offered to stay home with Scott so I could get out of the house for a bit and go to church. I rushed to shower and carry Bethany out the door with me. It was a much needed break. That afternoon, we slowly introduced a liquid diet. He slept a lot and never really moved off the couch. I don’t think he took twenty steps all day. In the late afternoon, we had one puking episode. That night, like the good mom I am, we took him to town (it was a slow drive over the hilly and windy gravel) and dropped him off at my mom’s so we could attend our financial peace class. Needless to say, he didn’t not want to go nor did he want to be without his mommy. At mom’s he managed to keep down about six crackers. After the class, we picked him up and took him home to put him in bed. I was so glad to know that he was finally over it and holding down food. My three day weekend would end up with a nice day after all, even if that meant finally get the house clean.

Monday morning bright and early Ryan headed to work. I fed Bethany in bed and we snuggled under the warm blankets until Scott woke up. He came in the room and crawled in bed with us girls. Before too long, he started to cough and gag a little. I assured him that he was fine and that it was just a cough now that he knows what puking is. He told me he was fine and pushed me away. But sure enough, it started to come up. It was really gassy sounding and I thought maybe it was nothing but I was wrong. I couldn’t get around to the other side of the bed fast enough. It was nasty, green and all liquid. It went everywhere. His shirt was soaked as was Ryan’s pillow, blanket and sheets. Fortunately he’d not got much on himself that couldn’t be cleaned with a wet wipe. After cleaning him up and changing him, we headed downstairs to the bed on the couch. Only, on the way down the stairs, he puked again. This time, as I was carrying him and so it ran down my shoulder before puddling on the stairs. We improved from the slimy green to just slimy. And I share those details to say that I thought maybe it was just an upset tummy from drainage and that we were done with it. My nice quiet day turned to more laundry, more small short drinks of sprite, more begging for food from Scott and still more puking. One incident soaked him all over, soaked the blanket on the couch, soaked my leather couch and went everywhere. That one required a bath which was not appreciated by the little man. Anyway, the day progressed, he stayed on the couch for the most part. I was able to take care of Bethany, keep watch over the sick kid and get my house cleaned. Halelujah! Throughout the day he chugged juice while I was preoccupied (that little stinker), ate numerous crackers, begged to eat a box cake and came back alive. He even helped me fix a cake but was quite the brat when I wouldn’t let him lick the spoon. He scarfed down soup for supper although I was nervous that he would begin puking in front of our dinner guest. And then, as promised, I let him have a small piece of very rich cake. For the remainder of the night he was his normal stubborn self and begged for food. I’m so glad the weekend is over.

This morning I woke up, glad that both kids slept through the night, no puking, nothing eventful. And I was thrilled to have a morning to sleep in and go to work. Several minutes later Ryan woke me up saying “babe it’s 637” and the realization came to me that my long weekend was over and I did indeed have to go to work!