Sick Kids and Trips

I have learned so much in the last week. First and foremost, I have learned that if a child throws up in the least amount and you were planning on a trip out of town, just go ahead and cancel the trip. If I had heeded my own advice, we could have avoided the troubling Thanksgiving that dropped in our laps.

It started the Sunday before Thanksgiving. I heard of some illnesses going around in the schools, but since our kids are not in the school system yet and don't have much contact with other children, I really didn't think about it. Plus I am just trying to keep up with my busy household so I don't have a lot of room right now to think about, well, anything! When Hannah threw up a little at lunch that day, I thought she probably ate something that disagreed with her. Both Hannah & Zach are prone to doing that, so no big deal in my book.

So then we move on to Tuesday. Packing arrangements have been going very smoothly for me and I ask Chad if he would like to leave for Mississippi on Wednesday instead of Thursday so we can be with his family there before the holiday. He was getting off early and has some extra time off so it's a go. Great! So I get busy packing for three kids.

Wednesday morning dawns and I go up to get Zach from his bed only to find him covered in vomit. It was all over him, his pillow, fitted sheet, cover, blanket, and one doll. Nice. Does that deter me? No. When I get set on a mission, I don't always recognize all the symptoms of that message that says, "Hello, dummy, will you just notice me?" I kept packing and watched Zachary through the morning. He would throw up and then just run around playing and laughing. He never had a fever and he simply didn't look sick to me!

After lengthy discussions, Chad and I decided to go ahead and leave at naptime after Zach had gone a couple of hours and kept some food down. We drove for just over an hour and Zach threw up everywhere. He and his car seat were completely covered. I had some spare clothes and changed him and we drove back home in holiday traffic, taking a lot longer to get home that it had taken to get to that spot! So now we have needlessly used up the few hours left of Chad's PTO plus I had to get out the car seat instructions so I could figure out how to remove the seat cover and clean it. We called it a day and decided to try it again the on Thursday.

Thursday dawned beautifully with no fevers (still) and no vomitting. Yippee! Off we went, meeting some family in Tyler for lunch and getting to Papaw's a little before bed time. All was great until Chad told me around 1:00 that Zach had thrown up again. Ugh.

And so the weekend went. Hannah got the virus next. Then me. Then Chad. Mercifully, Rebecca and Papaw never got it. But poor Pop Pop and Nana did.

So we traveled and descended upon the relatives with sick kids, crashed the party, and then spread our germs all around. We have become the relatives that everyone dreads. My absolute worst nightmare!!! So this will be the Thanksgiving I am choosing to forget. The only thing I am going to vouch to remember is my hard lesson on sick kids and trips.