The Tuesday following Easter I decided to bring the girls, mostly for Rowan, to a playgroup. We usually don’t have Tuesdays free because we take big brother Anthony to Science class, but dad took the duty of driving him. Rowan seemed to really enjoy the playgroup. I was a bit worried to let her run around without me closely watching her every move. I’m all about letting my kids play in dirt, drink from the hose, play with real tools, but something really bothers me when seeing the endless plastic toys scattered everywhere and thinking of how many slobbery mouths have touched those plastic blocks? How many dirty diaper bottoms saturated in urine have scooted across those fall mats? How many little kiddos have reached down their backsides, scratched at the pile of poo ripening in their pampers and reach back for the toys that my sweet sweet angel was just about to curiously put in her mouth? ughhhh just the thought makes me cringe.
Needless to say, playgroup was fun, for her. 🙂 As we walked out to our car I thought to myself, “can I really set aside my anxiety of dirty toys aside and let little Rowan Sage rummaging through the plastic paradise?” Fast Forward, Wednesday, Rowan has a fever and snotty nose. You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me. I don’t do sick kids. Anthony is the mutant child who never gets sick. But now my sweet middle child has “the works”. Could it possibly get worse? If you asked me with the snotty nose and fever were the only symptoms I would have said, “not a chance”, I was wrong, very very wrong. Poor sweet petite Rowan got a terrible case of a stomach virus. We ended up bringing her into the base Emergency Room. The polite M.D. reassured us this was “normal” for most toddlers. At some point they get this. Of course the main concern now was keeping her hydrated. The poo waterfalls began to fall, and fall they did! We literally went through two sets of King Size sheets, 24 towels, two loads of toddler clothes, undocumented amount of disposable diapers, a couch cover, two throw pillows, and I personally had to change my own clothes 6 times. The poo was water and spilling out of the diaper down her legs. Even with our best efforts, her little bottom became very raw.
Her appetite was gone, her mood was sketchy, with all good reason, and sleep was broken down into short naps separated by long waking periods of pooping. By Saturday I had enough. Not enough snuggles with my sick one, but enough of the laundry, of trying to cook dinner for everyone else, enough of the crying between the sick one and the baby. I loaded the entire family in the car for a trip to Dairy Queen. My thought process behind that was, everyone is such a good rider in the car, 40 minutes there 40 minutes back. I could get at LEAST an hour and half of peace.
I didn’t think through my choice in picking “Dairy Queen” when we have NO DAIRY in our house. Everyone really enjoyed their blizzards with the exception of baby Harlow. Of course I didn’t spoon feed her any, but as soon as I nursed her one side, she looked up at me and barfed more than a college kid at a frat party. I now had a break from the water poop apparel and now was the puke bandit. Was it a fluke? I changed my clothes and cleaned off the baby and sat back down to feed her the other side, and what happens, you guessed it. BARF! she went on to do this for the next two feedings. This is why I don’t do Dairy to prevent belly issues for the baby. WHAT WAS I THINKING? Clearly the long nights of tending to Rowan clouded my thought process. Along this bumpy road with the kiddos, I caught some sort of variation of the virus and threw up several times along with a fever. For obvious reasons, I wasn’t able to lay with my feet up and sleep it off. And now Nick has been down and out (and in bed resting it off) for the last two evenings. (of course Anthony slide by untouched)
It is now one week since my healthy child turned into one of the snotty nosed, fever, pooing kids, that the Dr. said is “normal”. I think from now on we will play in the mountains, creeks, lakes, and trails. I rather fight a brown bear than deal with that devil of a virus again. Happy to report, Rowan is eating and drinking and dancing again. And baby is nursing perfectly again.
Have any of you had a week of diarrhea hell? Any thoughts about the plastic paradise? leave your comments below!
dirtycoffee 
From the perspective of a preschool teacher….the plastic paradise, can be a great place for new experiences. But the germs are endless. I have some who have never experienced a cold before the age of two. Then they are exposed to the petri dish of a classroom and spend 80% of the year sick. Being exposed to the common cold is good in my book. Its a cold and super annoying but we deal wiping the noses every few minutes and sanitizing the toys often. The problem with the stomach virus….is the parents. It gets picked up at school, the store, anywhere then it parents deal with it and are over it. At the first sign of being fever free and normal diapers parents are running out of the house to get to those play dates and and catch up on anything that gets them out of the house. But then just 24 hours later there is that runny poop again. “What happened? She was over it and fine.” Well everything says you should stay home until there are no symptoms for 24 hours. But I’ve seen so much of it this year that I’m convinced parents should keep their kids at home or outside away from their friends and playgroups for 48+ hours. But no parent wants to be stuck at home with a sick one. I don’t want to, it’s annoying, it’s exhausting, and it could drive you to the brink of insanity, but the thought of contaminating others really bothers me. *obviously there are some circumstances that we just can’t help, running to the store with a sick child bevause you can’t leave them at home is one thing, but rushing to a play date because mom needs to get out of the house is another.
Thanks for letting me rant 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person