Puke Monday

One of the many joys of single-mommy-hood is that when someone throws up in the middle of the night, it is now my proud duty to handle the mess. Bring on flu season!

Some of you know that Josh was sick right before Thanksgiving. To be quite honest, I have never seen so much vomit, most of which ended up on my couch. Blankets and pajamas are easily tossed into the unlucky washing machine for de-puking, but the couch? That's a bit trickier. After contemplating just burning the entire sofa in the backyard, I reconsidered, and let good ol' Oxyclean, hot water, and dish soap tackle the salvaging job. I'm happy to say that it worked, and my couch shows no signs (or smells) of the shower of puke that rained down on it only a couple of weeks ago.

Soon after Josh recovered from his bug, I got it-- or, at least I think I got it. I'm still debating on whether or not it was just food poisoning, but oh well, I'll never know for sure, so who cares at this point, right? I pretty much Lysol'd my entire house at that point, just because everything felt so completely germ-infested that I had to do something. It took me days to get over whatever it was that invaded my innards, and I had finally just returned to the natural swing of things, when WHAM!

Gabe lurched a runny paste of ground Cheerios all over his bed (and his brother) last night, right as I was about to turn in for the night. Just my luck. Now, I'm pretty immune to all things gross-- I mean, I worked at a vet's office for awhile in college, so there isn't much that can turn my stomach. The odor wafting from Gabe's vomit last night, however, was enough to make me want to open all of the windows in the house in the middle of winter. So foul. Of course, it saturated every little last item that was in his bed, so I had to stay up until midnight, just to get all three loads of puke laundry through the washing machine. There was no way I could let that stank sit until morning. NO WAY.

After tossing both boys in the shower to rinse the puke off, getting them dressed, and changing their bedding, I started the laundry and proceeded to piddle around the house, looking for something to do until the last load of laundry had been tossed in the wash. All I wanted to do was go to bed, but no. It's at times like these that I get a little frustrated, as I'm sure you can imagine.

The good news is that Gabe didn't throw up anymore, so yippee! He stayed home from school today without any complaint (miracle), and hopefully he will be able to return tomorrow, because he "misses his friends". So sweet.

Well, for now I am off to check on dinner in the oven. Soon it will be the kids' bedtime, and I can breathe a sigh of relief that my crazy, pukey Monday is now over.