Post Thanksgiving sickies

WARNING: do not read if you can't handle vomit stories

So it all began Saturday afternoon when Sammy complained that his stomach hurt...and it's all been downhill from there. The stomach flu bug has officially hit us.

He started to feel better around 2am, so I decided that he and I could (finally) go to bed--we took a bowl with us, just in case. I was awoken at 3am by Helene vomiting all over me and the bed. By this time everyone is awake, so all we all head downstairs so I can strip the sheets off my bed.

I begin doing laundry and brace myself for a long night. As expected, Hannah begins vomiting at 4am. At this point, it's all I can do to keep the vomit bowls coming. Everyone seems to quiet down and stop vomiting around 6am, so we all head back to bed--with bowls in hand. We slept until 9am and went downstairs. Sammy felt okay enough to have some cereal and I gave Helene some Joe's O's (same as Cheerios, but better). Hannah ate some goldfish crackers and seemed okay. I was so tired and Helene seemed like she needed a nap, so Helene and I went upstairs to bed. No sooner did I lie down, then Hannah starts yelling/crying from the top of the stairs. She had thrown up from the top of the stairs, vomit was all over her and literally cascading down the stairs. Awesome.

No nap for me. I start the bath for Hannah and begin cleaning up the stairs. Note to self: never let Hannah eat Parmesean Goldfish if she has the stomach flu--the smell coming back up is positively putrid. Samuel has been at work pretty much the entire time this has been going on (he works double shifts on the weekends and is really only home for a few hours to sleep). I call him just for a little sympathy and then go back to cleaning.

I do the best I can with the stairs, but they are carpet after all, so the smell isn't entirely gone. And I then go upstairs to nap with Hannah in tow--and a bowl. Helene and I woke up around 3:30, but Hannah was still passed out--poor thing.

Samuel got home around 5pm and went straight to bed since he has to get up for work at 10pm and had been there since 11pm the night before. Everyone seemed vomit free and doing okay with food and drink, so we all went to bed at 8pm. I woke up at 10pm to get Samuel up for work and fix him lunch to take with him. Hannah also woke up and we hung out and watched TV for a bit and then went back to bed around 11:30pm. Fortunately, it was a quiet night with no one getting sick.

This morning, everyone was doing great. No complaints of stomach pain, no vomiting. I was still a bit cautious and only allowed the kids toast to eat. Next thing I know, Hannah is vomiting all over the couch and the floor and herself. **sigh** Back to the tub she goes and I do my best to clean up the couch.

Samuel came home from work early so I could go over to Danielle's and borrow her steam cleaner (I didn't dare take the kids anywhere in the van) to use on the carpet and the couch (thank you Danielle!) and to get a diet coke. When I got back, Hannah wasn't downstairs. I asked Sammy where she went and he told me that she went upstairs to nap. Sure enough, there she was passed out next to Samuel. Anyone who knows Hannah, knows that just isn't like her at all.


Here's hoping she's over it soon since it looks like everyone else is better now. I'm just glad that Samuel and I survived this unscathed. Or am I speaking too soon?

A little Thanksgiving fun

Warning: Long post with lots of pictures that are probably just for me. :)

I always seem to hit the Thanksgiving traffic whether I leave on Wednesday or Thursday, so this year I decided to leave for my parents' house on Tuesday--especially since both kids were off of school beginning on Wednesday. Unfortunately, Samuel had to work 2 shifts on Thankgiving and 2 more on Friday, so he stayed home. I'm glad the kitties were here to keep him company--and I brought back lots of turkey dinner with all the sides for him.

Before leaving town, I met up with some friends to have lunch with Lyndsey since she was in town for the holiday. The menu of choice? In-N-Out, of course.

Helene enjoyed the fries

Just kidding, I only let her play with the fry tray.

As much as I love my kids, can I just say how nice it was to just have Helene at lunch instead of trying to wrangle all 3 kids, in addition to chatting and eating. So nice and easy.

After lunch Helene napped at home while I started packing. Then it was off to pick up Hannah and Sammy from school. My goal was to be on the road no later than 4:00pm. Of course, I ended up leaving at 5:20 and hitting all the traffic. It took me 1 hour to go from my house to Irwindale. No joke.

I got to my parents' house a little after 8:00pm. Yep, 3 hours. Fun times. Actually, the older kids were fine because they had the DVD players in the back, but Helene was miserable. I finally pulled over to feed her, but it didn't really help and she cried/screamed for the 90 minutes or so. I was so happy to get her out of the van!

Wednesday was full of Thanksgiving prep and some fun for the kids. We ate lunch and then headed over to Chuck E Cheese's to play games for a bit.

Hannah liked the game with the bees and the honey jar

Sammy played lots and lots of basketball.
He is really quite good at it.

Whoo hoo!

Air hockey time!

Even Helene took a ride on the carousel

And Hannah rode every single ride that they had there

Helene took a break to hang out with Grandpa

Here are the only pictures I took on Thanksgiving--in my defense, there was a lot going on with all the kids running around and trying to help out with dinner.

This is the kids' table with almost all the grandkids (the babies were at the adult table), only 4 of the 13 grandkids couldn't be there.

Yep, napkins on their heads.

Helene got to sit at the adult table with me.
She kept trying to sneak food off of Larry's plate.

"Who me?"

And she was obsessed with her reflection in the water pitcher.

We headed home on Friday and had absolutely no traffic. YAY! As fun as it was to see all the family, it's always so nice to get home to your own bed and routine.

And it was just in time too as Sammy came down with the stomach flu this evening. He's been throwing up for the past 6 hours. Poor guy. I'm just glad we're home--it's so hard to be sick when you're not at your own house, especially when you're only 5.

Hope he's over it soon and the rest of us don't catch it!

Finally....an update and a few random things

I haven't been in the blogging mood lately. Mostly because it's the same routine day after day with the kids in school and there's really nothing new to talk about.

But here's what's gone on in the past few weeks:

* Helene turned 9 months on the 16th. She loves to be on the floor playing and is a slowly crawling around. She still isn't too sure about it--and I'm totally okay with that. I'd rather have a less mobile baby than one who is all over the place. She is still the happiest baby I know despite the continual constipation issues and napping-around-everyone-else's-day nap schedule.

* I had a birthday. Yep. I'm officially a year older. (GASP! I know, I don't look a day over 24, right? haha. Although funny story, I DID get carded at the movie theatre last summer. Ummm, thanks for the compliment movie-ticket-taker-guy, but I really don't think I look under 18. Especially since I'm pregnant, but thanks for thinking that I'm a knocked up teenager.)

* Found out that the cyst in Hannah's neck needs to be removed. You can read more about that here. We met with her ENT last week because I noticed that there were 2 or 3 little lumps next to her cyst. The doctor thinks that they are lymph nodes reacting to the cyst or possibly little satellite cysts feeding off the first one. Either way--they need to be removed. I am planning on having it done while she is out of school on her Christmas break.

* Had a Parent-Teacher conference with Sammy's new teacher. I really like her--she is friendly, nurturing, and enthusiastic. Who knew that would be so hard to come across in a Kindergarten teacher? She mentioned that Sammy was really advanced in his academics (thank you Pre-K!) and that he was one of the class leaders. We also discussed what he needs to work on most which is holding a pencil/crayon/etc. correctly.

She gave me a few tips to help with his fine motor skills, so we will see if that helps. I've noticed since Pre-K that he has had problems with that, but was hoping it would work itself out by Kindergarten. I've heard it's also a boy/girl thing, which especially shows true as Hannah has never had any problem holding a pen or crayon since the first time she picked one up.

* Had a Parent-Teacher conference with Hannah's teachers. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that there has been pretty much no drama from her. She had one minor tantrum the first month of school and she's been great ever since. She is also quite advanced in her academics as she already knows the alphabet by sight and knows the sounds they make. Her teachers were nice and tried to give me credit for it, but I had to give the credit to Sammy and Starfall. Well, okay, we do read quite a bit everyday, but I still think it's more Sammy and her computer time (i.e. mom is going back to bed so entertain yourself with this).

* Hannah's favorite CD is the Wicked soundtrack. We listen to it on the way to and from school. She loves to sing along, and while "Popular" was originally her favorite song, she has now moved on to "Defying Gravity" as the song of choice (i.e. put on repeat). She asks to listen to "Glenda" and "Alphabet" everytime we get in the car. Sammy really like "Popular" as well, but doesn't like any of the other songs. I'd like to take her to see Wicked if it comes back to LA.

* This is totally random, but speaking of music. My kids have three favorite songs that they ask to hear almost all the time. These are songs that they have either heard me play in the car or they've heard on the TV (e.g. when Samuel is watching a Clippers game). Either way, they are pretty random and I'm not sure what they say about my parenting. They are: So What'cha Want by the Beastie Boys, Yeah by Usher, Crazy in Love by Beyonce.

In my defense, the Usher song is the lead in/out for all the Clippers games, so Sammy just calls that his "basketball song." The kids like to watch Wow Wow Wubbzy on Noggin and one week last year they had a bunch of episodes featuring Beyonce as "Shine" from an all-girl band called the "Wubb Girls". One day while listening to a mix CD that Dana made, the Crazy in Love song came on and Sammy recognized that it was the same voice as "Shine" and so he wanted to listen to it over and over. And What'cha Want...well..what can I say? I like the Beastie Boys.

Don't worry--it's not all they listen to. We still hear plenty Laurie Berkner and Primary songs too.

* Just an FYI: Eggnog shakes are back at Jack in the Box! YAY!

Ok--that's all I have for now. I'm sure there will be the obligatory Thanksgiving Day post at the end of the week. See you then!