How’s that for a title?  The fact that I’m not getting today’s post up until 8pm might easily be understood when I tell you that I ended up with 4 sickies in my house today!  Yessiree 4!

Last night CJ threw up just before bed, then Lion in the middle of the night, then Baby Bug this morning and hubby felt horrible in the midst of it all.  The “wellies” were fit to be tied though and bouncing off the walls, but once the Salesman and Tater were off to school I just had Monkey boy to contend with. But boy was he in a naughty mood.  He knew perfectly well that I was occupied and buried under brothers, so he wanted to take full advantage of that!  But we survived.

Although I didn’t send CJ to school today (it would be so totally unfair to expose his classmates to him so soon after being sick) he wasn’t doing too well unless he overdid it in the eating department.  So he was a bit of a help when things got truly hairy a few times.

I’ve learned a few things from this round of a stomach bug, so I thought I’d share it with  you.   Obviously you can be only so prepared for illness like this and we’re never entirely sure what form it will come in, but once one person begins showing signs that would be the time to get ready and send the cavalry to the store to pick up a few things.  I have to share first of all how very extremely wonderful it is to have a washer that gives you the opportunity to “Sanitize” at the push of a button!

So here’s my recommendations of items to keep in the home:

• Large comfy sheets to drape the furniture with.
• Plenty of personal blankets that aren’t too bulky and are easy to wash.
• Latex (or other rubber) gloves.
• At least 2 buckets that are particularly good for using for throwing up.
• About 4 old towels
• A BLOG!
• Music
• fun videos, coloring books, etc that really only come out when they are sick, but can help keep them calm during the thick of the storm.

Here’s what to send the cavalry after if you don’t already have it in the house (or better yet, if you have any opportunity to get out of the house for a breath of fresh air it isn’t a bad idea):

• Lemon-Lime soda
• saltines (my family likes a variety; oyster, graham, ritz, goldfish ~ granted, some of them are not appropriate until many hours after vomiting has stopped, but they’re nice to have)
• applesauce
• Pedialyte (for the little ones)
• bananas (do not give these to anyone until you are sure they won’t throw them up ~ this is for me the all-time worst type of vomit to clean up, ICK!)
• rice
• bread for toast
• A variety of quick to prepare meals for the “well” part of the family.  We don’t do cold cereal around here, but on a day like today you know that if you are too distracted they will still be able to eat.
• Soup: particularly chicken noodle or broths

Well there you have it LOL!  It really isn’t that I’m an expert or anything, but I am simply right smack in the middle of it right now and this is what’s working!

Remember to sign up for the contest this week!  Oh, and I have a surprise super quick contest to share with all of you tomorrow!

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 24th, 2008 at 9:17 pm and is filed under Life As A Mom, Raising Children, The Icky & Sicky Parts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. If this post blessed, encouraged or inspired you, please feel free to "Stumble It" or submit it to kirtsy - Thank you! You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.