the FLU

I think puke and diarrhea are about even on my gross-out list now. For a while I was a little more keen on diarrhea because, although frequent, it mostly ended up in the toilet. Now, I'm not so sure. Ok, I know all of you are so excited to hear the story behind this....
So, last Friday, Andy and I were to leave for L.A. to get all set up to be "covered" by Isaiah's Stump. The kids were going to stay with family and we were to be heading off on the plane to meet these folks, do some paper work, relax, and do some site seeing. ANNNNYWAYS.. 4:30am (on Friday), Avery comes walking into our room doing these weird sounds like he is going to throw up. Well, he had done these weird sounds the morning of Halloween and never puked so we thought maybe it was just another weird sound moment. So Andy welcomes him into our bed. Bad decision. Almost immediately, BLEHHHHHH, all over the back of Andy and all over our bed. The both of us fly out of bed and rush Avery into the bathroom. We go into the whole routine: I bathe Avery as Andy starts doing wash. Everything settles down a little as Avery and Andy snuggle up on the couch with the "throw up bowl". Not for long! Avery goes into more puking AND diarrhea at the SAME time! Ok, now we're gettin' serious. More wash, another bath. Avery is just as happy as can be after each retching. By now, the girls are up also. And I haven't mentioned, Eva had diarrhea for 2 days straight the day before, obviously sharing politely with her brother. So, Andy runs to the store for some Pedialyte in between the puke/poop fest and I try and gather myself enough to at least try and get out of the house by 9:00am (I'm thinking, "Ha! Right, like THAT will ever happen!). Avery has another bout on the pot and I suddenly remember that we still have Pull-ups from when Ally was potty training, yay!! So, Andy walks in the door with Pedialyte and is greeted by an ecstatic 4 year old little boy, pointing to his princess Pull-up, pointing and saying, "Look daddy!!" Now that gave us some comic relief! Andy hands me the Pedialyte, gives me a sad look and says, "I gotta get to work." (He was only going the first part of the day so we could get to the airport by 11:30 or so.)
So, I cinched up my belt in a little more and dove into getting the girls their breakfast. I called my mom and filled her in on what she was about to embark upon, sorry mom! During this time, Avery had just "finished" in the bathroom and was washing his hands when I hear, "Moooommmy." Oh no. I come around the corner and am without words for a few moments. It looked as if someone had taken a spray hose and sprayed the entire bottom half of the bathroom with diarrhea. I really wasn't sure what to do at that moment. Avery looks at me as he stands naked on the stool and says, "Sorry mom." I looked at him with my crazy mom face and said, "Stay there! Don't move! I have to think for a moment." I closed the door on him and stood there in astonishment, racking my brain of how I could clean the mess up. So I sat the girls down in front of the t.v., grabbed a bucket, poured a bunch of bleach, soap and water in and decided to just go for it with a roll of paper towels.
Avery just stood there for a while, afraid to speak up because of all the fuming and grumbling that was coming out of the crazy woman who was cleaning up the huge poop mess. Until he announced that he needed to go again. "Um, mommy? I need to go poop again." I heave him onto the toilet and continue to clean as he begins to sing. Lord, help me. Eva comes toddling around the corner and decides that she wants to "help". I take a break and stick her in her high chair with a bunch of Cheerios. Back to work. During this whole time I think Ally was completely oblivious to the chaos as she enjoyed her favorite show, Clifford, The Big Red Dog. Funny girl.
So, I actually managed to clean it all up after about 20-25 minutes of some serious elbow grease and telling Avery, many times, to please lean forward because poop was splashing out of the bowl and onto the nicely bleached bathroom floor again.
I did NOT get a shower that morning but I DID make it out of the house by 9:05am which was a miracle. I got the kids dropped off at my parents' in time to speed back home to get Andy. Avery proudly wore his princess Pull-ups for the rest of the day and my dad reported that he was just fine by that evening. We got to the airport on time and as I sat down in the plane next to Andy, I took a deep sigh of relief, so proud that the kids and I made it out alive.