Under Siege

I interrupt the previously scheduled post for today entitled "A boy and his whale" to bring you this developing story.

We are under siege. Emma Mae brought home a stomach bug from Mother's Day Out last Wednesday that has taken on a life of its own. When I picked her up from class Wednesday her teachers informed me that all of the little ones had pooped excessively that day and one poor thing had thrown up. Well, I brought Emma home and she seemed fine for the rest of the day. On Thursday she had diarrhea. I hate that word. On Friday morning she had the aforementioned word accompanied by a one time throw up. Saturday and Sunday were the same. Unnatural amount of liquid poop with a one time morning puke. After she threw up each morning she felt fine. Played, laughed, ate.

Monday morning same thing. So, I took her to the doctor. He said not to worry unless she continued to have symptons by Friday. He also said it wasn't weird that she was only throwing up once a day, in the morning. He advised me to give her bland foods and Pedialyte to help plug things up. Emma doesn't really do bland foods. She prefers strawberries, avocado and dairy products. Friends, you don't want to see too many chunks of strawberry coming out of a person's tummy.

I counted ourselves lucky that the puke was a once a day thing. So, then of course it became a twice a day thing today. Still, not so bad. I was used to the smell and could get her and her bedding cleaned up with not too many problems.

Then, things got worse. I heard her gagging in her room Monday night around 11pm. I got out of bed quietly trying to let Mike sleep. He has to wake up at the ungodly hour of 4:35am to go to work. We had already been kept awake by the three year old coming into our room twice between 10 and 11pm. He needed to pee. Instead of going in his bathroom which is located approximately five feet away from his bedroom door, he likes to navigate dark hallways to come use our bathroom. He actually made a pit stop in his bathroom to turn off the light we left on and then told us he couldn't go in there because it was too dark.

Anyway, Emma. Gagging. I walked into her room fully expecting to be greeted by one smell but got something entirely different. Friends, the smell was caustic. I knew we were clearly dealing with a poop malfunction. It was pungent (acutely distressing to the feelings or mind). The smell had its own life force and it was reaching out to strangle me. My eyes watered. The hair in my nose burned. I wanted to puke.

Poor baby Emma was beside herself screaming "MUMMY! MUMMY!" I picked her up out of her crib. (Remind me to tell you about my bad back later.) I undressed her and took her to the playroom to clean her up and put on a new diaper. She started screaming for her daddy at this point. When a girl screams for her daddy it is serious business. Still, I wanted to let him sleep. I had her on her back cleaning her up when she started to gag some more. I figured she was about to throw up so I turned her on her side. Friends, she did not need to throw up. She needed to projectile poop on her mommy. For those of you without kids, it is impossible to get out of the way of projectile poop or PJP's. I had it all over my legs. I started screaming for her daddy. He woke up and came in the room saying "something smells!" I said "yes, it's poop. And she just pooped all over me." Okay, I may have used a more colorful noun than poop at this point. I really don't remember. It's all a blur. Anyway, we got her cleaned up and put fresh sheets and blankets on her bed. Mike went back to bed and I cleaned the PJP's out of the carpet in the playroom.

I went back to bed and just could not fall back asleep. First, I kept smelling poop. I feared there might be poop on my person. Second, the smell we endured tonight has seared itself into my brain and I'm afraid I can't get rid of it until I write it all down. So, I apologize for the content of this post. "A boy and his whale" would have been so much nicer for you to read. I can only hope most of you lost interest after the first paragraph and stopped reading so you didn't have to go on this entire journey with me. It's now 12:30am. I'm going back to bed now. I'm going to try to ignore the vague poopy smell that is still lingering. I'm also going to try to ignore the rumbling, crampy feeling in my tummy. Here's hoping that tomorrow is a better smelling day.