waiting for the locusts

As I try to deal with everyday stresses of two kids under six, a Grandma with dementia, a husband that is overwhelmed with work and school stresses of his own, while awaiting the results of my Dad's biopsy, Oona gets the puke bug. I'm on load 4 of vomit laced laundry right now. She started up last night right before midnight. The perplexing thing is when she isn't actually throwing up she acts fine, almost better than normal, like vomiting energizes her and she's even more active than usual. Last night I kept wandering into her room every half hour when she'd cry, in order to tell her she could only have one stuffed animal, the rest were recovering in the washer, or she couldn't have a sippy cup of chocolate milk, no Owen's not getting up, it's the middle of the night and she needs to go back to sleep.

She seemed fine this morning and I gave her a not quite full sippy of water/plum juice and she took two bites of a plain donut. We took Owen to school, got the car washed (the robins had a field day on it) and came home. A friend stopped by to take Oona's crib for their newborn and Oona was bee-bopping between her room and Owen's when all of a sudden she's hurling all over herself and Owen's rug. After the third bath in 12 hours, the friend drove up a couple blocks to the Rite Aid to get some pedi-lyte for us, I put her in her brand new kitty cat pj's and she lay on the sofa watching My Neighbor Totoro, a great film that was loaned to us by a friend. I'm getting myself yet another cup of coffee in order to make it through the day when Oona comes wandering to the kitchen whimpering 'crib', which is never a good sign. I picked her up to hug her, bad idea with an upset stomach, and she puked on me, her pj's and the dining room floor. Time for bath number four.

I got her squeaky clean, again, and put her in her new big girl princess bed - which right now is just a matress on the floor, until I finish working on her antique bedframe. We bought pink sheets with white polka dots for the bed but they were covered in towels to keep them puke free. I was busy showering when I kept hearing her open and shut her bedroom door. This is what I feared about having her in a bed that isn't like a jail in some ways, that a taste of freedom would go to her head. She wanted me to get her books on the dresser, frog on the shelf above the dresser, and dog and pink cat too. I switched on to mean mommy mode and cleared her shelf and dresser, telling her she couldn't have the animals until she stays in her bed. Cruel but effective, she cried two minutes and has been asleep close to an hour now. It's amazing my kids came from the same gene pool. When we put Owen in his bed, at the same age, he might cry about having to go to bed but he never actually left the bed and wandered around the room, it was like an invisible fence was on the bed. He still won't get out of his bed, in order to go the bathroom or for a drink of water, without asking permission from Toby or I. Not so with Oona. I hope her stomach calms down soon, I'm going to run out of towels and sheets before long. But seriously, I hate to have my kids not feeling well, although she's pretty perky for a sick kid. Now it's a waiting game, wondering who in the family will be next and when my personal plague of locusts will arrive.