the weekend and whatnot

So, here's what happened. Last Thursday night, while Jared was away on business, I stayed up most of the night listening to thunderstorms overhead. Henry, to my amazement, slept through the hours and hours of booming thunder and torrential downpour. In fact, he slept in until almost nine...which I loved. When I heard him start to sing and play in his bed Friday morning, I meandered upstairs to fetch my boy. Everything seemed normal until I hit the top step...

A smell. A very funny smell. Like an old milk bottle...or something. I figured it was my hormones bringing back a smell sensitivity, and I quietly tiptoed into the guest bathroom (where I keep the scale) to see what the damage was in that department. Ehhh, not too bad...but still, the smell. Out the bathroom door, a few steps towards Henry's room, stronger smell now, getting worse, open his door, positively rancid...turn on the light. Oh. my. God.

His entire bed was full of evidence of his meals from the day before. I'm not talking out the diaper either...I'm talking full-blown pukefest. Dried. Caked. How could I have not heard this happening?? Ugh...bad mommy, poor baby, 3 hour clean-up.

He acted normal for the entire rest of the day, though, so I chalked it all up to 'too much pizza for dinner.' On Friday, I kept him on the BRAT diet all day, and he seemed totally fine. 150%. Runnin' and gunnin'. Until about an hour after I put him down to sleep for that night. Heard him start to cry on the monitor, then he starts saying "Noooo, nooo, nooo!" I race up there to find, yet another, pukefest. Awesome. This time, Jared is here to help with the clean-up. Amen. We decided to let Henry sleep in our bed (which we NEVER do) since we felt so bad for him, and all of us were snoozing peacefully by midnight. Is it a stomach bug? Is his stomach just off? Hmmm...

Saturday morning started early. In his excitement to find that he was in our bed, little man was up at 6:30. "Mama...dadddy! Mammmamaaa!! Daddy! Bedddd!!!" It was so adorable. At 7, I got up to make him breakfast and get the day goin'. At 9, Jared woke up and joined us. At 10, I knew for certain we had a virus on our hands. How did I know? Well, the fact that all I wanted to do was curl up on the couch and not move or be touched or talked to was the first sign. Then, the tummy-ache. Then, my proclamation that I would be canceling the girls' night I had been planning to host at our house for over a month (for which I had already cooked and decorated!!). Jared thought I should wait a few hours to cancel...I told him that I knew the badness was forthcoming...he said go lay down and decide when I got up...so I did. Well, actually, the pukefest that ensued decided for me. By 11, it was bad. By 12, it was worse. By 3, I tried to take a sip of apple juice...no go. At 4, water. Nope. At 5, gatorade...fat chance.

At 6, my doctor called me. Evidently, some of my sweet family members and friends had tipped him off as to what was going on. You know, 7 hours of the ugly stuff. So, he asks when the last time I held anything down was...the night before. What about fluids...yeah, last night with dinner. How did I feel...horrible. Was I holding anything down now...not really.

Okay, well, I'm going to leave some orders up here at the hospital for you to be admitted for IV fluids, a few tests, AND overnight observation.

Seriously, the hospital? For a little throw-up?? I mean, come on...it's only been a few hours...surely I'm going to hold down this new gatorade I'm working on now!! **hiccup**

No ma'am. You have to go, he says. So, reluctantly, I went.

My tests showed bad numbers indicating serious dehydration. My resting heartrate was 135 indicating that my body was working overtime to make up for lost fluids/nutrients (I tried to blame this on the fact that I had to ride an elevator, walk to my room, and climb into a hospital bed...but doc wasn't buying it). My head hurt. The only good news about any of it was that sweet Baby J was just cool as a cucumber. His heartrate was perfect. His kick counts were great. And, although I did have a few (very minor, Braxton-Hicks) contractions during the first hour of being there, those stopped shortly after the first bag of fluid went in.

Then, I got a call at 10 from Jared to let me know that Henry had doused him from head to toe and they were both heading for the bathtub. Perfect. Did I mention that this was the one weekend since we moved to Texas that we had no family members around to call on. So, J was home with H...and my friend, G, took me to the hospital and stayed with me until I was about ready for bed. Anyway, I got two more bags of fluid through the night, held my breakfast down like a champ, and was discharged by 10:30.

I would love to tell you that this is where the story of our virus-plagued weekend ends, however, that just wouldn't quite paint the whole picture. You see, when Jared picked me up at the hospital, he said he was feeling bad too. You know where this is going, so I'll just leave it to your imagination to fill in those details. Thankfully, they don't involve anything as exciting as a trip to the hospital.

So, thirty hours after THAT, we exited the blur that was our weekend and took Henry to a hibachi grill for supper. Something about fried rice just sounded good to all of us...and we knew he'd love to see a smoking onion choo-choo. And we were right.

And, now, this house is cleeee-ah.