Yesterday was the family Christmas party and we told the kids we weren’t going to monitor what they ate as far as sweets, but that they should “use good judgement” and “try to eat SOME things that are good for you”.

Naturally, every time we saw them, they were grabbing a few more cookies or candies. What can you do, though? Some lessons you have to learn yourself.

Cut to 1 am when Ollie came into our room to say he threw up. As I scrubbed his floor he held his tummy and said, “I’m never going to eat sweets again!” (And so far he has kept to his deal; he hasn’t eaten any candy in the first four hours of this morning!)

After I got him tucked back into bed, I went to rinse out some of the rags I had used to clean up. When I started the bath I discovered that someone had left the shower plug up…discovered by receiving a full blast of freezing cold water on the back of my head.

I have to say, there is something special about a full blast of ice water on your head at 1:45 am when your hands are covered in someone else’s puke. Somehow it just felt…apropos pro.

2017 going out with a bang.

Since I originally posted about the stomach flu thirteen days ago, you’d kind of think we would be over the topic, right?

As I previously mentioned, Evelyn was the next to go (well technically Oliver was, but he never actually threw up, so that one doesn’t count). That left me as the last man standing. You would think, knowing that, that I wouldn’t have been taken by surprise when I got sick, but I spent a significant portion of Wednesday afternoon rubbing my chest and going, “Man, that bagel is just not sitting well.” By the time I got to the train, I was only thinking about getting home ASAP, and by the time I got through the 30 min train delay, I was really sweating it.

After going through it myself, I only have more sympathy for the rest of the family, because it was utterly brutal. It really only lasted 24 hours or so (plus another day to recover from the dehydration), but here I am almost a week later and still not *quite* back to normal. I did lose almost 6 pounds in 24 hours, but as a weight loss plan, I can’t recommend it.

The bad news is that Alex was both the first, and last, person to have it, going on almost two weeks now. He hasn’t thrown up since Saturday, but we’re still being careful. He has gone for a few stretches before, only to unexpectedly go through another bout again after a few days. He has seemed a bit more like himself since yesterday, so maybe we’re out of the woods.

That poor, poor baby.