Last night, I was tired after a long day, and my husband and I had a rare chance to go to bed early. In very unusual fashion, I had finished my shower and was already in bed and about to doze off before the clock ever saw 10pm. (If I ever think that I'm still 20-something, I just need to remember how excited I was to be in bed so early on this night, and that should jolt me right back to my 30+ reality.)
It was 10:35 when I heard it. "Mama. MAMA!!" Ahhhh, man... "What's wrong, buddy?" "I'm sick." My heart dropped. First and foremost, my middle boy felt terrible, and that just rips my heart out. After having spent a good bit of 2017 fighting off what I thought was a recurrent stomach bug (but turned out to be a gallbladder issue that required surgery), I could commiserate with how awful he felt. Secondly, I knew those two words meant that I was heading into a proverbial war zone where everything in his room was booby trapped, and even if it didn't have actual puke on it, it still had germs that were like heat seeking missiles with the sole mission of taking me down. I threw on my robe, grabbed a ponytail holder, and headed in.
At 6, my kids are getting pretty good at making it to the toilet or hitting the puke bucket (which is actually a $1 plastic measuring cup from Walmart) when they're sick. Unfortunately, he had ZERO indications of illness before bed, so he didn't have his bucket, and he most certainly didn't get to the toilet. He met me in the bathroom, and we got him undressed, cleaned up, and in clean, dry pjs so he could lay down in the floor while I handled the rest. Now to assess the damage... by some miracle, he managed to keep everything on the bed, and for once, I didn't have to clean the carpet! I did, however, have to scoop warm vomit from his sheets and pillow before I could strip the bed and head to the laundry room.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't gagging the entire time. I can handle blood, guts, and snot, but puke gets me every time. I think it's the smell. You know what I'm talking about.. I can just type that, and you get a whiff of it. I know. It's bad. And it's not easy to get that smell out of just anything like, say, a pillow. I'm no stranger to this Mom game, and I know when to pick my battles. I also know that you can find a pillow suitable for a child for $2.98 at Walmart. I didn't even have to ask myself if it was worth it. I jerked the pillowcase off that bad boy and immediately trashed it. By now, it was almost 11, and there was no point in wasting my time and energy trying to salvage something that would forever have a faint vomit smell.
If you have small kids, you know that nobody sleeps on a mattress that doesn't have a waterproof liner on it. Too bad for us, we only have one that fits each of the big boys' beds, so when there's an accident like this, it's pallet time. We saved the kindergarten nap matts for occasions like tonight. I covered that joker with an extra sheet, stole a waterproof crib liner from the baby's room to cover my carpet surrounding his head, and set up his sick camp. Bucket, check. Spill-proof (for real) Nalgene water bottle, check. Three blankets because he's extra cold, check. (And before you even say anything, no, he didn't have a fever, he was just cold.) Peppermint and thieves oil diffusing, check. In less than an hour, I had him cleaned up, calmed down, and settled back in for the night. Score! Now on to the laundry.
More good news - when I made it to the laundry room, there was NOTHING in the washer! Ha!! If your house is anything like mine, you know that this was incredibly unlikely, and definitely something to be celebrated. This seems so insignificant, but it meant that I didn't have to do bonus laundry before I could wash his sick sheets. It also meant that I didn't have to waste another hour of laundry shuffle before I could go back to bed. Thank you Jesus for small favors! I got everything started with an extra dose of bleach because, duh, germs, and headed to the couch to wait to toss it in the dryer before I headed to bed.
I sat down and queued up the next episode of Scandal on Netflix. Before Kerry Washington could even start telling me what happened last time on Scandal, I heard that panicky "Mama!!" again. You have got to be kidding me. I rushed in, and of course, he was throwing up again before I could get to him. However, even when my boy is sick, he's smart enough to be aware of his surroundings, and he grabbed his bucket. Again, thank you Jesus!! I could tell this was going to be a long night.
We did the stomach bug dance for the next three hours, and I wound up sleeping in his room because when your sick baby says "Can you stay with me?" you do. My sleep app said that my night was crappy, and honestly, that felt a little optimistic. Fortunately, my boy was feeling better when he woke up this morning. He will, obviously, be quarantined to his room all day because I'm a big advocate for breaking the chain of infection. I'm washing our hands like crazy, slathering everyone in Thieves oil, Lysol-ing everything we own, and praying that the rest of us are spared.
A few things I couldn't survive stomach bugs without:
Our Nalgene cups. The $6-10 price tag is typically more than I would spend on any "sippy cup," but it's a small price to pay for a cup that actually does NOT leak. My boys can keep them in bed or on the couch, and I don't have to worry about cleaning up a mess from a spill. I mean, we've been using these cups for 5 years, and we've had maybe 3 leaks. So. Awesome. Lots of color and design options!
Our "throw up bucket." I couldn't find the exact one we have, but they have this one on Amazon that is similar. It's a cheap, plastic bucket that can be thrown away if needed, and the handle makes it easy to transport and carry from room to room. I keep a couple inside the house and one within reach of each car seat in my car (they fit in our cup holders). Because I hate cleaning up puke from car carpet even more than house carpet.
Lysol. Lots of Lysol. I buy the store brand (because I'm cheap), and it works just as well. Washing your hands is the very best way to prevent the spread of illness, but we all know that kids touch EVERYTHING and then put those
Rubber gloves. Because the only thing worse than having to clean up puke is cleaning it up with bare hands.
How do you handle stomach bugs with your kids? Any tried-and-true methods that work for your family?
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