Oh the sickness. I feel like I haven’t been to work in three weeks, what with the vacation and the boy sickness then my sickness. Not that I’m clamoring to work at my oh so exciting job but I do prefer it to cleaning up toddler puke and puking myself. So I guess I’ve got that level of job satisfaction going for me.

The boy came down with a mysterious stomach bug about a week ago. The first experience we’ve had with this sort of thing. I do consider it a minor victory that we made it to 15 months before having to deal with a stomach bug, but still not so much fun.

What was so frustrating about this particular bug was that he would be sick one day and fine the next only to get sick again the next day. We missed all our planned Easter festivities and he puked all over me at Sunday brunch with the in-laws.

We had ventured out to a fairly nice restaurant in an attempt to get the whole family together. The boy started getting fussy and I was trying to get him to eat something when all of the sudden he threw up all over me and himself. Lovely.

My husband wasn’t at the table at the time, he was up at the buffet getting himself some grub. We had just sat down after all. I asked his niece to please go get him and tell him not to bother because we needed to go.

My mother-in-law then looked at me and said “Well, could you take Boog home and leave the husband here with us to eat?” I looked at her, not really believing this request and said “well I could but I’d prefer not” She said she would be happy to bring him home after brunch. I looked at her again and said, “yes well I would prefer not to have to deal with a sick, screaming child by myself.”

My sister-in-law then asked as we were leaving why we were leaving “are y’all leaving just because he’s fussy?” I looked at her and said “no, we are leaving because he just puked all over me.” I will admit I was no doubt a bitch to both of them. But I was stressed, my kid was screaming and I didn’t find the questions to be at all helpful or relevant to the situation.

At first I was angry that my MIL would ask if my husband could stay. As if I would say “oh sure, I’ll taking the screaming, vomiting child home, you stay here and enjoy your lovely, overpriced brunch.”

The more I thought about it though the more I realized that this is probably a generational thing. In her day when her children were small there was no question as to who would remove themselves from that type of situation. She never would have dreamed of asking her husband to leave a family gather (or any gathering for that matter) to help her care for a sick child. Times have changed however and my husband wouldn’t have dreamed of staying.

I did apologize to her later for my snippy attitude but she said she understood and that she had of course been there before having had five children herself. Luckily the restaurant didn’t charge her for the two bites of food I’d had prior to Boog’s explosion.

I have to give props to the husband though for taking my side. Later in the day his sister called to discuss the events of the morning. She recounted the events to him and he backed me 100% saying that if the shoe had been on the other foot he was sure he would have done the same thing. Also he explained to her that there is a big difference between a little spit up and full on vomiting. She doesn’t have any children and doesn’t quite get that Boog is less like a baby now and more like a little boy.

On Tuesday Boog finally returned to daycare but on a modified diet until we could make sure all this was behind us. Then of course, guess who came down with a mysterious bout of nausea on Tuesday, that’s right ME! Ugh, it was awful, it was like I was pregnant again, but I knew for a fact I wasn’t pregnant.

I spent all day Wednesday wallowing on the couch and trying to keep down a bowl of oatmeal. I watched a marathon of Top Chef which I couldn’t decide if it was a blessing or a curse. I love this show and was glad to have something to watch but wasn’t thrilled with the fact that it was a show about food. When they got to a show about tripe and other disgusting meats I had to turn it off. Even on a good day I’m not sure I want to watch all that. Blech.

I seem to be on the mend and I’m back at work today. Boog is back on a regular diet with the exception of the breakfast at daycare this morning. Really who in their right mind would give a room full of one year olds pop tarts for breakfast? Might as well feed them a cookie for all the sugar and empty calories. I sent some whole grain cinnamon raisin toast for him instead.

Hopefully we won’t have to deal with another stomach bug for quite some time. I’m certainly keeping my fingers crossed. (and loading up on my probiotics just in case)