Jan

25

The Birthday Gift That Keeps on Giving

January 25, 2006 |

We celebrated Olivia’s birthday Monday night with her favorite dinner - breakfast. We made Chocolate chip waffles, bacon, eggs and home fries. Everyone feasted and when her brother got home from basketball practice at 8pm we had cake, ice cream and her presents. It went well for the most part except for the typical fights with her little sisters over her new toys and their fervent desire to use all of Olivia’s new possessions.

The evening went on as usual - chaos and mayhem until everyone was finally wrestled into bed. Then at midnight it began. Elizabeth, my 3 year old, woke up spewing everywhere. Jeff took her to the bathroom while I changed her bed and got her clean clothes. He got her dressed and tucked back in while I threw her bedding in the washer. This went on every 30 minutes until nearly 4am. At 2:30am my husband was hit with it and was sharing the bathroom with the 3 year old. By 3:30am my son had joined them as well but fortunately sleeps on the lower level of the house so he had a bathroom to himself.

By 6am 50% of my family was puking on a regular basis so I called my daycare families and closed down for the day. I figured it was only a matter of time before the rest of us fell ill. I also decided to keep Olivia home from school even though she wasn’t sick yet. I guess it was just mother’s intuition. She woke up at 7am, went out to the kitchen and got a drink of water and it came back up as quickly as it went down. Now 4 out of 6 were down for the count.

Lauren, my youngest, woke up her typical sunny self and seemed unaffected. She asked for Cheerios and ate her customary 2 bowls while she played and watched Noggin. She and I hid out downstairs while the sickies were upstairs. My stomach felt all twisted but I assumed that was due to dealing with all the bodily fluids of the others and that smell of death that comes over the house whenever the stomach flu hits.

We thought it was something from dinner the night before - a bad egg or something - but we had been exposed to the virus last week when my stepdaughter and her son were sick with it. The fact that Lauren and I weren’t sick in the morning seems to indicate the virus. After staving it off for the entire day, I finally succumbed last night around 5pm and Lauren followed around 7pm. A family of 6 felled by the dreaded stomach virus in less than 24 hours.

We are all better today but you would not believe the amount of disinfecting and laundry I have to do. I have my favorite Yankee Candles burning throughout the house, washed my hair twice in the shower this morning and have bathed all the children (and the husband) thoroughly. We never seem to get colds anymore, which sucks because I would take colds in all their snotty glory over the stomach virus any day.


Comments

7 Comments so far

  1. cassie-b on January 25, 2006 4:01 pm

    What an awful happening. I hope that’s the end of it and that you’re all feeling well.

    Cas

  2. mrs. diamond on January 25, 2006 6:48 pm

    oh no that’s horrible!!! nothing worse than puking. i hope it passes quickly.

  3. Snapper on January 27, 2006 6:36 am

    Oy!

  4. Andrea on January 27, 2006 7:34 pm

    Aww, sorry you all are tossing your cookies! A similiar thing happened to my friend and her family on New Year’s Eve. We had been around them the 2 days before - but amazingly we didn’t get it as badly as they did - and I didn’t get it at all.

    We all have the snots right now. As much as I hate it, I think I’ll take it over the pukes!

  5. Autumn on January 28, 2006 2:10 pm

    ouch

  6. Bev on January 29, 2006 3:56 pm

    YUCK! Nothing worse than that damn flu! I’d rather give birth than have the stomach flu!

  7. Theresa on January 30, 2006 10:16 am

    Oh yuck! That happened to us once, and I thought we were all gonna die. LOL!

    Glad you feel better now though!

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