Who is next?

Thursday night about 11:45 pm Justin comes down stairs and tells me that he has 'puked in my bed.'  I settle him on the couch with a 'puke pan' and head upstairs to clean up.  Luckily, he threw up on the bed and there wasn't any on the floor.  I just balled up all his blankets and sheets and threw them in the basement to deal with later.

I had just crawled into bed and just fell asleep when Darren comes downstairs and tells me that he threw up.  I go thru the same routine with Darren as I did for Justin and was grateful to see that everything was contained to his bed, so I rolled up his blankets and threw them in the basement.

My Mom is typically my back-up sitter when my kids are sick, but I knew that she has to watch my sister Carla's kids on Monday while Lydia had her tonsils out.  I didn't want to spread the sick germs to Mom, who would share them with Carla's kids, so I just stayed home with the boys.  Carla didn't need to deal with sick kids and a kid recovering from having her tonsils removed, so I decided to just stay home.  I have only ever used about four sick days for myself in the past 13 years and about that many days to stay home and take care of my sick kids.

Luckily the vomiting and feeling bad only lasted for about 12-14 hours, so they were feeling better by mid-afternoon.  I kept busy by doing laundry.  All.  Day.  My machine is 9-10 years old, so I can only put one blanket in the washer at a time.  (I didn't want to over stuff my washer and not get the puke smell out)  When the boys have two blankets, a comforter, sheets and a mattress pad that needs washed, I really was doing laundry all day.

Sunday morning about 7:00 am I hear Nathan running towards our room, stops in the kitchen and threw up in the kitchen.  He slept most of the afternoon, and was feeling better by about 9:00 pm that night.

Tuesday morning as I am getting ready for work, I hear Bruce come home.  He never made it to work before he had to turn around and come home after throwing up in the side ditch on his way to work.

I am starting to fear tomorrow.  The trend seems to be every other day someone in our house is getting sick so that would mean that I am due tomorrow.  I will have to make sure I clean up my desk tonight before I leave work!

Something in the walls

Because we live in town, I never really thought that we had a critter problem despite the fact that we live in a house that is almost a 100 years old.  Last night however changed that thought. 

I went upstairs to tuck Justin into bed for the night and Darren was still awake.  He tells me, "Mom, we either have a mouse, a bat or a bed bug in the ceiling because I can hear it."  I kind of chuckled because he does not realize the epidemic that bed bugs have become.  He just knows that I tell him a lot of nights to "sleep tight and don't let the bed bugs bite."  I thought that he was just hearing the wind or the rain hitting the window so I didn't worry about what he said.

Then I went into Nathan's room to make sure he was covered up, and sat and watched him for a minute to see if he was really sleeping or if he was faking it.  As I watched him, I hear sounds in the ceiling above him.  Based on my experience growing up on a farm, it sounds like we have mice.  Yuck!  In the four or five months that they have been upstairs, I have never heard or seen any evidence of mice.  Not sure why last night on a damp, warm, 40F degree night I hear them for the first time.  Needless to say I got the mouse traps out of the garage storage this morning and set them upstairs.   I wonder if we will have any dead bodies when I get home from work?  I actually entertained the thought about getting a kitten/cat from my parents for a house pet to catch the mice.

Sounds like an excuse to go

The second weekend of November, I went on a long, girls weekend trip to Florida. 

Fast forward a few Friday's (the 30th to be exact) and I was getting ready to leave for a Mary Kay party at a friends' house.  I give the boys a hug and kiss before I leave and Darren says, "How long are you going to be in Florida this time Mom?"  It sounds to me like he was more than okay with me taking another trip! 

A compliment??

Bruce and I both had New Years Eve off from work.  We knew that the restaurants would be crazy busy that evening, so I convinced Bruce to go to Olive Garden for lunch.

The older two boys were very well behaved while Justin thought he had to use the restroom every five minutes.  He also forgot how to sit still.  I ask the older two boys how their food was.  Nathan told me that my homemade pizza was better.  Darren then tells me that I make better spaghetti.  Really?  We could have stayed home and I could have cooked?  I almost wanted to slam my head on the table when I realized that I could take what they said as a compliment.  As in I am the better cook compared to a wildly popular franchise restaurant.  However for my spaghetti being better, Darren was practically licking the plate clean!

Smell my......

Recently Justin walked into the living room where I was relaxing and reading the paper.  Bruce was in his chair watching TV when Justin came into the living room whining about his finger.  He was looking at it and I had assumed he had hurt it.  Instead he walks up to me and tells me to smell it!  Bruce and I burst out laughing and I tell Justin I am not going to smell his finger.  Then I told him to ask his Dad if he wanted to smell Justin's finger.  Justin kept insisting I smell his finger.  Not sure what he got into and what it smelled like (because I never did smell it), but it was funny.