I couldn't decide

Its been a while since I posted.  The reasons/excuses are too many to count.  So, I told myself that I HAD to blog today.  But, you see, I couldn't decide what to post.  Should I blog about the fun adventures of Halloween weekend, playing it up like life is full of unicorns and rainbows?  Or, should I blog about what really happened- life full of puke and poop and chaos?

I still can't decide.  So, I'll leave you with a day-by-day recap of just this weekend.

Friday:

A's school has an awesome Halloween party every year.  They do an indoor-style trick-or-treating, going to different offices/people, and playing Halloween themed games.  What I like best about it is that they try to give out things other than candy.  like books, water bottles, pretzels, etc. (of course, they totally serve chips and cookies at the end, though.)

A monkey on my back

A and his BFF (he's the man in the yellow hat, if you didn't know.)

I swear, E looks like this in the majority of our pictures.

He's really thrilled to be doing this, can't you tell?

The Zekester and his fingers.

E came to the festival, but had to leave early.  I hustle the kids back to the car, unload our goodies, and head for home.  We arrive home, and I start getting the boys ready for nap time.  A takes off his costume and is stark naked when the phone rings.  O has thrown up at school and I need to pick her up.

Rush around, get A dressed, get I dressed, and get back in the car. (Thankfully, the schools is right around the corner, so it doesn't take long to get there.)  Run into the school to pick up O, who starts bawling the minute she sees me.  I try to calm her down, reassure her its going to be okay.  I get her into her car seat, buckle her up.

Now, what I did next is just pure mommy instinct.  O didn't say her tummy hurt or anything, she just started coughing.  I undid her buckle and yanked her out of the van.  As I did that, she started throwing up everywhere.  Thankfully, since I had already started the process of getting her out of the car, only a tiny bit of yucky stuff got on the floor (but, man, does that stuff smell!)  It was all over her, and all over the walk way.  I went back in, got paper towels, and the nurses had to come out and help me clean her up.

I'll leave out what happened the rest of the day Friday.  I'm sure you can guess what I did, including canceling fun plans to go out with friends and canceling O's plans to spend the night with Grandma.

Saturday:

Besides the lack of sleep, we had a pretty decent Saturday.  We put all of the kids down for early naps, since O was up a lot in the night and A got up at 4:45 because he saw the bathroom light on and thought it was morning.  O slept for almost 5 hours.  When she woke up, she was like a new kid!  I took her and I to Publix while E and A built a fire (in our new fire pit) to cook hot dogs in for dinner.

Sunday: 

Sometime early Sunday morning, A got sick.  I stayed home with A and I, while E and O went to church.  We realized that the Halloween party we had planned, was NOT going to be happening at our house.  So, we found an alternative venue, which ended up being a lot more work than it sounds.  It was extremely stressful trying to get everything over there.  Then, I couldn't even enjoy it because I stayed home with the boys!


But, we did have a wonderful time trick-or-treating in the neighborhood.  Austin was feeling fine, so he came along.  Isaac was a peach, as always.  He even got a little vocal at the end, with lots of screeching and yelling.

O as the tooth fairy                                                   A watching O leave.

He perked right up when I started getting him dressed

for trick-or-treating, though.

My poor third child.  This is the only picture of

him in his costume on Halloween.  Sniff.

After the fun!

So, after all of the fun, we quickly put all of the kids to bed, and settled down to raid the treat bucket.  I heard I, over the monitor,  starting to cough.  I ran upstairs (for some reason, coughing seems to lead to puking when the tummy bug is going around) and found little guy covered in throw up.  He was so upset.  I felt so bad for him, just sitting there in his mess. 

E and I cleaned that all up and put him back down, only to come back upstairs to find the same scenario 15 minutes later.  I decided then, to just hold him for a while.  When I was ready to go to bed, I put him down.  I was expecting to have him wake up a lot, but he didn't.  So, at 5, I went ahead and nursed him.  Big. Mistake.  DURING the nursing session, he threw up again. 

So, he's recovering today.  I'm recovering today, from having a very icky weekend, full of lots of laundry.  But, I'm also feeling a tiny bit grateful for a few things. 

1. Mainly for a husband that is quick to help and has a strong stomach for icky smells.
2. For a husband who was home (since E travels pretty frequently.) 
3. That I's tummy only had milk in it when he vomited all over me. 
4. That I has been sleeping through the night, thus giving me a tiny bit more rest to deal with other night wakings from other children.
5.that we have no other children in our house right now to catch this tummy bug.  (we're the only one's left.)

So, there you have it.  A bit of the nitty-gritty, a bit of the unicorns.  My indecision at its best.