You know how winter just drags on and on and on and on once Christmastime is over? And when nearly every day you have below-0 temps, and no one can go outside and play, it makes the days stretch out and run together and we stay-at-home Moms start to feel a little stranded and lonely and stir-crazy. So, when Jordan said he'd like me to take the kids down to Iowa to pick up one of our female dogs, Polly, and bring her back (before she went into heat since we wanted to breed her), I was more than happy to comply! I planned our trip to cover a couple of weekdays and a weekend, so that we could spend time at Jordan's parents' and then be at my Mom's when she was off work for the weekend. The kids and I were so excited as we packed and prepared. Serena & Bret kept speculating about how Grammie and Grandma & Grandpa would react when they saw them. ;) They had their backpacks packed about a week in advance.
I didn't want to leave the fridge bare, of course, so I planned to run a few errands when we went to storytime at the library on Tuesday. But, we had a big storm on Tuesday, so we stayed home (again) and ran our errands on Wednesday instead. And since we hadn't been anywhere since Sunday, I'm certain that it was while running those errands we also picked up the bug which made our trip to Iowa so memorable.
Honestly, the trip would have been memorable enough with the snowstorms we hit on our drive down. Appleton was sunny and clear when we left Thursday morning, but things started to turn ugly as we neared Madison. It's been a long time since I've driven on such bad roads, but I felt like being two hours from home we needed to just keep plugging along rather than turn around. Traffic on the interstate was going 35-40 mph. The roads were snow-covered, and every time anyone passed me, they splattered my windshield with the wet snow, taking my visibility down to nil. THANKFULLY, the kids were A.W.E.S.O.M.E. travelers, especially during the particularly dicey times! I had packed them little bags of stuff to play with, and we had some story CDs to listen to, so they were pretty good about leaving me alone so I could keep both hands on the steering wheel and both eyes on the road.
We finally made it to Grandma & Grandpa's house in the late afternoon. The kids were of course so happy and played and talked and chased and laughed. It was a great evening! We put them all to bed in a room together (first time doing that at Grandma & Grandpa's...usually we have the baby in a crib in the room we stay in). Then, Anna & Kari and I stayed up playing games and talking. We finally decided to get ready for bed around 11, and then I heard Bret start to cry. I went in to check on him, and the poor kid had thrown up!
I don't know if other parents feel this way, but whenever I encounter puke, I am immediately filled with a dread and my stomach begins to churn. A combination of sympathy pains and the realization that this bug is probably going to be taking over our entire family one by one for the next...3 days?...5?...a whole week, maybe? We had a stretch two winters ago where it kept popping back up every week for 5 weeks! Ugh!!! Part of me felt like I really shouldn't complain...last winter we had the stomach flu two or three times and several bouts with bad colds, and this winter has just not been bad at all. A few sniffles, the stomach bug in the early fall, and that's been it. BUT, then I felt sorry for us since we'd finally gotten to come down for a fun weekend in Iowa!! I'd much rather be sick at home than on a trip!! :(
However, I hadn't anticipated what a blessing Grandmas can be during sickness! Kari got us everything we needed and cleaned up Bret's bed for me while I held Bret. He was very sick all night long. Serena finally woke up in the early morning hours, and she got sick once, but that was it for her that day. Friday we laid low, and by evening we were gradually and cautiously letting the kids eat and drink. Great-Grandma, Pa, and Grant braved the germs to come over for supper. I hope they didn't regret that too much when they became ill two days later. :(
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| Pa let Cody color with some colored pencils and Cody thought he was such big stuff! He also liked that Pa would take pictures of him and then show him on his phone! |
Saturday morning, everyone seemed to be doing better, so I packed us up and we went to meet Mom in town. We had a couple errands to run, shopped at Goodwill, ate lunch at Panera, and headed home. Once again, the kids were just great. The main lingering symptom was their lack of appetite. They got hungry, but didn't eat much.
When we got to Mom's, I put everyone down for naps right away. They should have been so tired, but they didn't fall asleep! After an hour and a half, they were still making noise! I commented to Mom as I headed down to get them up at 4 that the only thing worse than their not taking a nap that afternoon would be their falling asleep at 4. I got down to their room, opened the door, and found this:
They must have just fallen asleep!
I think we let them sleep for 45 minutes or so and then got them up. Later that evening, we had another round of sickness, except Cody was the main star this time. That night, I woke up sick as well.
Sunday we laid around and did nothing much. I found out that Kari, Anna, Luke, and Ron had all gotten sick as well. :( Mom was amazing. She kept everyone happily occupied and made me sleep and did tons and tons of laundry! Monday, Mom had to be back at work. I had originally planned to go home, but decided to stay one more night just to be sure the nightmare was over. After a decent night's sleep, and no more sickness for a whole 48 hours, we left Tuesday morning.
The weather was fine on the way home, and the kids traveled well again. At about the half-way point, Cody fell asleep and then kept waking up crying and would fall right to sleep again. I figured he was just exhausted from the crazy events of the last few days. About an hour from home, he woke up crying again and then just started throwing up. A lot. Oh, it was terrible! I seriously didn't know what to do! I pulled over and wiped him off a little with a towel that I had, and put some messy items in a sack; but it was so cold and snowy, I couldn't take his clothes off or take him out so I could clean up. It was a nightmare. We got back on the road, and I just prayed and prayed that Cody would somehow not throw up again until we made it home. And I cried. I was so tired, and so tired of the sickness, and so disappointed from our ruined trip, and so dreading getting home and figuring out how to clean everything and everyone and get the kids into the house and all our stuff. This was really the lowest point of the whole ordeal.
It turned out okay. Once again, Serena and Bret were troopers and occupied themselves really well and stayed out of the way while I brought things in and cleaned things up. I got Cody in (and discovered he'd also poo-ed all over himself...ick!) and threw him in the bathtub. I discovered the car was miraculously unscathed by the incident, which was encouraging.
In the following days, everyone started to improve and we didn't have any more sickness until Jordan finally got sick on Sunday, poor guy.
That trip was definitely memorable! The day we came home, Serena prayed that God would remind us not to come visit Grandma & Grandpa and Grammie when we're sick next time. ;)
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