Deja Flu

2005 is starting out very similarly to 2003 - with kids sick and vomiting.

Emma caught it first on December 30th. She threw up in while standing in her bedroom about 30 minutes after eating some fruit snacks. So now, thanks to fine coloring agents Brach's uses in its snacks, we've got some mutant pink stain to try and pull out of the carpeting. Hopefully the super-strength clearers my mom gave us will do the trick. Otherwise we'll be shopping for some throw rugs.

Emma went on to be sick most of the night and into the early morning - which I was awake for most of. Heather came down with similar symptoms shortly after Emma the same night, so I had to fly solo when it came to the caring parent thing. While Heather kept a hold of things fairly well, Emma struggled to keep food down most of New Year's Eve day. Needless to say, when the day was wrapping up Heather and I were both ready to go to sleep about 15 minutes after all the kids were sleeping - which ended up being around 10 pm. No late night ringing in the new year for us.

New Year's Day passed without much incident. Emma was slowly able to start eating normally and everyone was feeling well enough that we got to go to my sister's and future brother-in-law's apartment for dinner. We all had a great time. The food was good and so was the company. We even had a small belated birthday celebration for Heather. Ian went home with my mother to spend the night and Heather and I headed home with the girls.

Round two started at around 1 am when Zoe vomited in her crib and we learned through a phone call from my mother later that morning that Ian had woken up around 1 am also sick. So now we're at it again with the tiny sips of water and the popsicles. Luckily, Zoe doesn't seem to have it too bad and Ian has always been a good "sick" kid. He always does a good job of just resting and letting his body take care of things - unlike Emma, who continued to try and play and run.

Obviously I'm trying to figure out if I'm still on the schedule to get it or if I didn't already have a mild version of it at the same time of Emma. It's kinda hard to tell. I'll just have to wait and see. I just hope this getting stomach flu around the first of the year thing isn't going to become some horrible McKillip family tradition. I'd rather stick with grilling out on New Year's Eve and eating kringle in the morning.