Sick sucks

Tuesday night Brayton was refusing to eat his dinner. I thought it was just that he didn't want to try the meatloaf that Mommy cooked. After a good deal of coaxing with the promise of a Twix bar, he ate his meatloaf, potatoes, some grapes, and that Twix bar. He wasn't overly playful that evening and after we got a bath taken, I took him into his room for the bedtime routine.


We read about half of the "Cat in the Hat" when Brayton says, "My tummy hurts" and proceeded to vomit all over himself, me, and his blanket in the chair. Meatloaf, potatoes, grapes, and that Twix bar, all readily identifyable. I need to talk to my son about chewing his food rather than biting off chunks and swallowing the pieces whole.


We then yelled for Mommy, proceeded to clean up the mess and give B another bath and new pajamas. B got to bed then about 930 pm.


1am, I hear Brayton screaming, immediately I know what's up. I go to his room and as soon as I walk in he says "I coughed in my bed." There they were, those dreaded words. Sure enough, bed full of vomit. It was on the sheets, blankets, pajamas, lamb, caterpillar, and in B's hair. I took poor B into our bathroom and proceeded to bathe him again while Colette stripped down the bed and put our last set of sheets on it.


330 am, screaming again. Any guess what it was this time? Yes, another cough in the bed. The only upside to the third vomiting session in 7 hours is the fact there is now a very limited amount of food left in his stomach to vomit up. So we did the drill again, bath, new pajamas, blankets over the bed because we're now out of sheets...


630 am, B's up. I'm getting ready for work, B is still very sheepish and wants a drink of water when Colette brings him into our bathroom. We give him a cup, he guzzels, and guzzels, and guzzels. Within 15 seconds, he vomits up all the water all over our bathroom floor. Oh man, do I feel bad...my son is sick sick sick.


For the past two days, Brayton has really not had any type of appetite. Colette has been challenged to get him to eat much of anything. But of course, as she always does, she finds something to keep them going.

Here's the picture...and note the blanket on the couch to guard against the possibility of future puking. Also note little sister's big smile, she got a popsicle too, just because you can't give a popsicle to one child and not the other...I think in economics that is called "consumer surplus."

Slide

Yesterday while the kids were sleeping, Colette and I were sitting in the living room. I was watching the NFC Championship football game and Colette was reading a book. All of a sudden, she jumped up out of her chair and ran outside. I was kind of taken back because I had no idea why she went outside.

I found it kind of odd actually, because 1- it was cold out there 2-she had no coat on and 3-the snow is about 2 feet deep in the back yard.

Shortly afterward, she came back up to the deck with the slide in her hands. It was full of grass and snow. Colette said she had been meaning to go outside for the past few weeks and bring in the slide so the kids could play with it in the house. So, after a bit of cleaning up and wiping down it was clean enough to put out to play.

Lauren was the first up from her nap (which is normal). She is the one Colette really wanted to play on the slide.

When Colette brought her down, we could tell she was going to be crabby. She nuzzeled up into Colette's shoulder and kind of had a little frown on her face.

Then Lauren saw the slide. She immediately said "Down" to Colette. Colette asked Lauren where she thought she was going and Lauren said "Slide."

I was amazed that Lauren not only remembered what it was but she also knew what it was called. She wasn't talking nearly as much last fall when she played on it last.

Anyway, Lauren was so excited to play on the slide. She climbed to the top of the stairs and would just stand there with the biggest grin. That's the picture at the top. She would take her hands off the rail and just stand there like she was being some sort of daredevil. It was a really precious moment.

Then she proceeded to go up and down for the next 1/2 hour until her brother woke up.

What fun!