Katrina woke up throwing up today, though she had little in her to lose. Dave ended up coming home from work. Gabriel has a cold but has avoided the stomach thing, though he has a nasty cough. Julian's fine.
And I have a temperature, aches, chills, and a lot of the sort of stomach pain that precurses throwing up. It brings with it a form of PTSD, since it brings me right back to the painful, debilitating months I spent in that same pain while pregnant with Katrina, plus heartburn, cottonmouth, horrible tastes in my mouth, and countless other ills. Any sort of stomach pain makes me really paranoid.
But the constant, relentless whining from a sick and hungry toddler is very, very wearing. We're not supposed to give a vomiter any food or water for 24 hours since the last episode. That is really hard! Impossible, in fact. Distracting her and trying to hold her off didn't work, and the crying was always on the edge of turning into full-on tantrums. Katrina was clearly hungry tonight, and I tried to give her things that would take longer to chew, but in the end, she got a bowlful of rice and nearly an entire bottle of Pedialyte (with water!). She's finally playing happily tonight, chatting to herself, so I think the worst is over.
This week is supposed to be the week that I spend summer days with my children, taking them fun places and doing fun things. Not today! And probably not tomorrow.
But I was still determined to get something in, and was delighted to find that a new letterbox had recently been planted in a nearby park. Perfect. After finding the letterbox and exchanging stamps, the boys played on play structures, whil Katrina pushed the stroller around. It was easier for me to be active and moving around than it was standing and watching them play, so we cut it short and were home by 11am.
It was definitely worth getting everyone outside today, even though every step was a lot of effort.
Thank heavens, Katrina took a 4-hour nap starting at 11:30, allowing me, and then Dave, some much-needed rest. We're going through the motions of parenting and childcare tonight, taking turns sleeping, but I'm counting the minutes until I'm horizontal again, huddled under mounds of blankets.
The worst thing is, normally I'd get in a great big fix of Food Network shows, but I can't bear to be around or watch anything having to do with food! Boy, there's a lot of bad TV out there. I'm not sure I'm in the mood for my Netflix WWII documentary either.
I feel absolutely horrible, but my baby is better tonight, so I am too.
7/21/08
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