I feel like it will be hard to forget last night, but I'm sure I will someday, so I want to record some of it. Feel free to turn away, readers who are squeamish of stomach.

I had a pretty nasty bug that hit me in the lower GI a couple of days ago now and it made for a rather miserable and sleepless 36 hours. I thought maybe I had eaten something bad. Then, last night I heard crying on the monitor, and boy am I glad I looked to see what that was about...I saw Owen sit up and then urp all over himself and his crib...oh no!! He's never thrown up before last night. We rushed to action to reassure him, clean him up and clean up the bed. He was a sweetheart about the whole thing; he was almost intrigued by this new experience, of course exploring his face and jammies and the mess in the bed with his hands (double yuck!) and then he just wanted to cuddle after we got him cleaned up. It seemed to have subsided, so after some rocking and singing I put him back to bed and attempted to leave the room (we have had *really* bad luck with the child refusing to close his eyes as long as we are in the room with him, so even though leaving makes him cry for a bit, it's often better), but Reuel thought this time we should stay with him. Daddy was right, he was urping again within a few minutes. The sheets and jammies routine, take 2. 15 more minutes, take 3. You'd think we'd have figured out not to change them so quickly by now. But you just have this feeling of powerlessness and without having talked to each other at all, I know that Reuel and I were just in action mode trying to help little man as much as we could, even if it was just changing his sheets over and over! After take 3, Reuel managed to get to bed and catch some zzz's and after one or two more episodes that happened on my lap rather than the bed, I got Owen back to sleep...I got him to not cry as I left the room by telling him I was going potty and I would be back, so go ahead and lay down while I go potty. It was a white lie for his benefit. I saw him sit up for a minute waiting for me, and then he fell over exhausted and went to sleep...for about an hour. I woke to hysterical screaming (I was OUT, having not slept more than a couple of hours the night before due to my own viral manifestations) that may have been going on for a while. Yup, more throwing up and Owen getting really upset about it at this point. I went in and he looked at me as if to say, 'Why is this happening mommy?' and I just felt so devastated. It made me realize in an instant what mothers of truly sick children must go through...it's so hard for me to even see him a little sick. He had a working vocabulary of the night's events by now, so he was saying 'towel, towel, towel!' and 'wipe, wipe, wipe!' and 'dirty, dirty!', wanting to get cleaned up. Reuel didn't wake, and I didn't have the heart to invite him to the party, and I was not about to go to the basement myself and get the earlier laundry and try to change the bed, etc. So, now-experienced parent of sick child rudely put a couple of blankets over the wet spot in the crib, mopped up the jammies (not too bad this time, not much in his stomach!) and spent a good long time rocking and chilling. We made it through 3 or 4 more urp sessions. Owen was getting really tired of it and frustrated by the end when it wasn't very productive and just involved a lot of gagging. I gave him some water despite knowing it would probably come back up and he gratefully gulped it down. We finally made it to sleep for the rest of the night by about 1:30am. I laid down on the floor next to the crib and that was the trick to Owen not getting upset about me leaving, but being able to close his eyes and actually drift off. It was hard to believe, but he woke at his normal hour, happy as a lark. When I came downstairs to meet Owen and Reuel this morning, Owen reminded me of last night's 'trowup' happenings and the 'tauw' (towels) that are 'doo-ty'. I know it could have been worse, and I'm very grateful it wasn't. I think we are really spoiled that we hadn't experienced anything like this until now...:O