Vomitus Maximus: Part I

The title of this post is the perfect description of what my weekend consisted of. Shall I give you a run down of the events? Too much information? Maybe, no probably. Not interested? Oh well, here I go anyway. Misery loves company afterall and after what I've dealt with I can't not share the splendor of dealing with a family sized stomach flu epidemic...I'm apologizing up front.

So Friday evening I head off to the gym with the kids in tow. I love my gym because the gym that I frequent (yay YMCA!!) has child care that I can utilize for up to 2 hours a day whilst I try to drop the pounds and baggage that the last 6 years have bestowed upon me. My kids get to play while I sweat off Tuesday night's Cheesecake Factory dinner, can't think of a better scenario.

Flash forward to 8pm and I am done at the gym. The kids and I are now driving to my in-laws' home where Carlos is waiting for us. I park, get CJ and Lexi out of the car, unbuckle Elli and she promptly begins to regurgitate dinner. Now I, being equipped with lightning quick motherly instincts, instantly place my hands underneath the flow of my child's half digested dinner in a cupping fashion and manage to catch 99% of the nastiness.

After waiting to see if she is done I turn around and begin to look for some way to dispose of the contents of my hands. I begin pacing and weighing my options. My first instinct was to just drop it where I was on the street but then I realized I'd then be stepping in it. Not desireable. I then thought about the sidewalk. No, gross. I would hate to be taking a morning stroll and come across someone else's vomit in my path so I decided I wouldn't do that to someone else. Ooh the grass! My in-law's lawn or the neighbor's lawn? Hmm, decisions decisions. Again my conscience pricked at me and I threw that option out.

At this point CJ and Lexi come back out of the house to see why I hadn't followed them. I yell for them to get daddy and tell him Elli had thrown up and to bring a trash bag. My command was immediately followed by their running shrieking back into the house "Daaaaddddyyy Elllliiiii threeeewwww upppppp!!!" Carlos comes rushing out and gets as far as the end of the house and I see he doesn't have a bag. I yell "Go get a trash bag!" If I start to give you the impression of Kate Gosselin from Jon and Kate Plus 8 right about now, remember that I've been holding vomit in my hands for roughly 3 minutes now. A little abruptness is understandable dontcha think?

Carlos returns with the most wonderful trash bag I've ever seen and I instantly drop the muck in my hands down into the bag. Carlos, oh great husband and father that he is, has quite a weak stomach when it comes to bodily fluids especially when those bodily fluids are not where they're meant to be and he drops the bag and staggers several feet back retching and heaving. Thank goodness they were of the dry variety and none of his stomach contents were expelled because that would've just ticked me off. I mean, if he were to throw up on the sidewalk at that point it would have rendered my holding the vomit for over 5 minutes meaningless. Thankfully he was a good husband and didn't disappoint in his ability to hold back the floodgates. But not for long (oooh the foreshadowing, I need the sound effects they have on TV "dun duun duuunnnn")...

We get Elli inside and cleaned up. Not much of a mess to clean up though, remember my heroic effort at containing all the vomit in my hands! She is acting fine at this point. Her usual playful, ornery self. No fever, no lethargy. We decide that maybe she had eaten too much at dinner and played a little too hard at the gym with perhaps a little car sickness thrown in. Carlos and I had plans to go out on a late dinner date and went ahead with the plan since Elli seemed fine. We put the kids to bed at Carlos' parents leaving Elli in the care of Tia Becky and off we went to Carraba's Italian Grill. Mmmm.

We return about an hour later and find Elli alseep on the downstairs couch in different clothes than what we had left her in, being watched over by Carlos' mom and sister. She had indeed thrown up again. All over Becky's bed. Sorry Becky...

Since CJ and Lexi are asleep upstairs we make the decision to leave them for the night and just us three go home. We wrap her in a blanket and I pick her up and lay her head on my shoulder. We head out the door to the car when she starts to throw up again. This time down the front of my shirt. Lovely. We decide to just press on and clean up when we arrive home.

We arrive home and get both myself and Elli cleaned up. I set up a Vomit Ready Bed (VRB) in CJ's room for Elli and I to share. This VRB consists of towels lining the bed and pillows, a medium sized bowl within easy grasp, roll of toilet paper, and sippy cup of water. I lay Elli down on the towel covered pillow, pull the blanket over her and then place a towel over the top of the blanket so that if she does up chuck again I'll be washing towels instead of bedding. Ingenious I tell you.

We retire to bed without anymore incidents and I fall into a semi sleep, afraid to fall deeply into slumber for fear of Elli drowning me in a stream of puke. I am awakened by the sound of my cell phone ringing and once I'm able to locate it among all the towels I realize it's Becky. Oh no. One of the twins is sick.

~To Be Continued~