The Flu

WARNING: This post contains numerous references to being sick, the stomach flu, and barfing. I'm sorry. I'm sure no one else finds this interesting but I have to record it for posterity so that Glenn and I can look back on it and say, "Well this *current event* isn't as bad as the Great Stomach Flu of 2012."

When I picked up the kids from school on Thursday, the first thing I saw down the hall was Will, with a face the color of a piece of paper, sitting on the floor staring off into space and I thought, "Uh oh." (The actual words I used were not suitable for a family blog.) Glenn and I had planned our first ever night away from both kids for this weekend. We had previously had one work trip where we both spent the night away from the house but I think I was in Casper and he was not in Casper so it wasn't a romantic get-away. So back to the story.

As I'm picking up Will on Thursday, I'm asking him what's wrong, does he not feel good, does his tummy hurt, etc. and he insists that he's fine. His teacher mentioned that he didn't nap that day and he told me it was because he couldn't lie still. After I picked up a perky Reina, we all headed to the car. See Will knew he was spending the night at Pop-pop and Grandma's house this weekend and he was beyond excited for that. He and Grandma Hansen share an affinity for Capt Jack Sparrow and so several pirate-themed events were planned. Back in the car I told Will that even if he didn't feel good, there was a good chance he'd still get to have his sleepover. With that in mind, he blurted out, "I don't feel well!" Bingo.

Will spent the remainder of Thursday evening on our couch looking wan and refusing to eat (warning bells! warning bells! Will doesn't want to eat!). By the time bedtime rolled around he was barfing and the fun was on.

Long, gross story short, he barfed all night and into the wee hours of the morning. I stayed downstairs with him in a move to stem the germ tide (facts important for the story later) and we both grabbed a few hours of sleep here and there. Mr. Pale Barfy was clearly not going to school on Friday and I had the easier day so I stayed home with him and we sent Reina off to school in an attempt to keep her out of the germ pool and my hair for a few hours. Will seemed to perk up Friday morning but then resumed his spot on the couch and stayed there for hours and hours.

Fast forward to Friday night and I start to feel that certain feeling in my stomach that usually signals only bad things to come. I warned Glenn and also ate a piece of German chocolate cake because I figured if I'm going down, it's going to be in a blaze of glory. For the record, I truly regret that move. I should also note that at this point, Glenn and I are starting to make contingency plans in case the Great Romantic Get Away can't happen. We decide to see how everyone feels in the morning. So we put Reina to bed in her room because she's fine and Will and I stay downstairs in the Germ Zone.

About 15 minutes after lights out I hear Reina crying, Glenn going into her room, Glenn making a noise that is fairly indescribable but that I later found out is the sound of a 42-yr old man stepping into a puddle of vomit in his bare feet. I go upstairs to help even though my stomach is pitching and rolling like one of Will's pirate ships. We decide to move Reina downstairs to Germ Zone, Will back upstairs to his room and I'll stay in the downstairs with Reina. Fast forward a few more minutes and Glenn is running back and forth between Reina and I with a bucket (actually not a bucket but a little green Coleman cooler that I will not ever be able to look at the same way again). It was a really rough few hours. I can sum it up by saying that it's awfully hard to comfort your barfing 2-yr old when all you want to do is push her aside and use the bucket for yourself.

So this morning (Saturday) finally dawns. Reina wakes up chipper and perky, like the evening from you-know-what never happened. She's truly amazing. She claps delightedly at the bubbles in her Sprite while I'm still cautiously sipping on tepid water. She bounces around the room and proudly announces "I frew up last night!" I can hardly lift my head off of the pillow. We are worried she's a vampire or some sort of hybrid X-men type human. Scary. When Glenn wakes up, he brings Will back down to the Germ Zone because Will resumed his barfing in the middle of the night. Interesting side note, Glenn hadn't actually put Will in his room, he put him our bed and that's where he threw up. Repeatedly. (We actually ended up calling Will's doctor because the poor little guy couldn't keep anything down. She prescribed an anti-nausea medicine that seems to be doing the trick. Fingers crossed.) Yeah, romantic get-away postponed.

So in an alternate universe, tonight Lucy and Glenn are finishing up a fancy meal at a non-kids type restaurant and strolling the streets of Estes Park hand-in-hand. Will's watching Pirates of the Caribbean for the fifth time with Grandma. Reina is entertaining Uncle Matt and Aunt Wicky with her detailed and elaborate bedtime postponement routine. But here in the real world, it's 9:09 p.m. and I'm headed back down to the Germ Zone for one more night on the couch to keep an eye on Will. I've got my other eye on Glenn to see if he shows any signs of becoming the fourth member of the Pauley family to succumb. Fingers double crossed.

Basketball!

On Saturday, Glenn and I did something that we've never done before and it was high time we did it. We took both kids over to a UW basketball game in Laramie. The men's team is playing some fun basketball and Saturday's game was the Border War with Colorado State. Back before kids and Glenn and chores, I used to attend most of the home games and a few of the away games and I've missed that excitement about the ol' AA. I was a little skeptical taking the kiddos because the game was at 4:00 p.m. and Reina still needs a good nap on Saturdays and there weren't going to be any actual pirates for Will, but you know what? It worked out alright.

We picked seats high enough in the stadium where there was some room to run around but for a while, everybody just watched the game and ate popcorn. Reina danced to the music. She liked the band and the music coming through the P.A. system. She also liked the dance team.

One thing she didn't like?
The mascot. Will was friendly and gave him a big hug. Reina didn't get within 20 feet of him. After this photo shoot, she carefully monitored where he was in the stadium at all times and would periodically remind me, "Where's that Cowboy guy? I don't like him."

The game went about five minutes too long for the Bronco Babies attention spans but it was a good trip. AND, the Cowboys won which made it even better. Will and Reina might just be my new good luck charms. Oh, and Glenn too. Of course.

Fight for Air Climb

Glenn and I and Aunt Vicky and Uncle Matt are participating in the Fight for Air Climb in Denver next month. We will be climbing up 55 flights of stairs to raise awareness and money for the American Lung Association.

As you've seen on this blog, Will has had a few respiratory issues over the years and while everything is under control right now, asthma and other lung concerns are never far from my mind.

If you are interested in supporting this cause, you can find out more information on the website at:
http://action.lungusa.org/site/TR/Climb/ALASW_Southwest?px=4421728&pg=personal&fr_id=3950

You can also donate on Glenn's website at http://action.lungusa.org/site/TR/Climb/ALASW_Southwest?px=4744957&pg=personal&fr_id=3950.

We appreciate the support. This was actually kind of fun last year. I didn't realize it would be so hard to climb 55 flights! I'm actually doing a little bit more training this year. Thanks again!

I give it five minutes

(I preface this blog post by saying that Glenn asked me to go easy on him. I'll try to, I really will.) Glenn spent a good portion of this three-day weekend sorting Will's legos. Tired of finding pieces in every container in Will's room, Glenn bought three fishing tackle boxes and TACKLED the Lego situation. He painstakingly sorted through thousands of little plastic pieces of Lego and came up with an ambitious system. This box, for example, contains car parts, windows, pieces with 2 lego connector things, tools, pieces with 1 lego connector things, hinge-y parts, something else that I don't know what to call it and flat pieces that serve no real purpose. The other two boxes contain an assortment of body parts, pieces with 3 lego connector thingies, slanted pieces, Star Wars paraphernalia, animals, furniture, clothing (yes, we have Lego clothing pieces) and much, much more. This project took quite a while. Yesterday afternoon, Glenn was finally ready to unveil his organized masterpiece to Will. You know Will, the one who actually plays with the Lego's? I could hear Glenn's presentation from my spot in the kitchen so I raced upstairs to capture the moment.

"Okay Will. This is where the heads without a body go. Here's where you put the pieces that look like police car lights. This space is for connectors. Did you get that?" "And here we have the obtuse angles fit in with the trapezoidal connector pieces, not to be confused with the bottom half of those little mermaid legos."

Yeah. I gave it five minutes. Surprisingly the Super Detailed Organization System is still in place today but that's mainly because Will found other stuff to keep him entertained.

In other news, Reina wore her church dress all day on Sunday. Good thing it's machine washable. Doesn't she look like a little Degas ballerina? Wilder hair of course and a less docile expression. And the Degas wasn't holding a pear.

Finally, Glenn and Uncle Matt took Trigger bird hunting this person. The good news is that he retrieved some of the birds. The better news is that he's been very, VERY tired the rest of the day. Too tired to chew on stuff he's not supposed to and tear around the house like the Tasmanian devil. I wish he could bird hunt everyday.

The one where I write a letter of complaint to Reader's Digest

So I'm home with the kids again today. Reina has had a cold all week and until today it was one of those colds that makes her too sick to go to school, but not sick enough where she wants to lie on the couch and nap all day but would rather race around the house shrieking, demanding snacks every 10 minutes and wanting to help me type. I stayed home on Tuesday but made Will go to school for a few hours so that I could attempt to get a few work projects done. I've discovered that Reina likes having me to herself in the car. Before picking Will up at lunch, Reina and I ran a few errands and here's a sampling of the non-stop chattering that goes on in the backseat.

R: Mom, do you like clowns?

M: Yah, I like clowns. (I don't really but no point in adding to her list of Things Reina Doesn't Like which is long enough already. More on that later.)

R: Do you like cookies?

M: Yes, definitely.

R: Do you like coconuts?

M: Yes. (Someone learning all of the words that start with C?)

R: Look Mom, there's a castle!

M: Yes, that looks like a castle doesn't it. (It's actually a funeral home but we won't go there.)

R: Oh look another castle!

M: Yes that looks like a castle too. That's the Capitol Building!

R: The Capitol Building? What's that?

M: That's the place where people work, like how mommy and daddy have places where they work.

R: But why?

M: Well, that's just a place where people do lots of work. Hey look - a horse! (There's a statute of a bucking bronco outside of the Capitol.)

R: A horse?! I love horses! I ride a horse when I get bigger?

M: Yes, you can ride a horse when you get bigger. (Thankful to be done with the 'why people work' line of questioning.


Everyone went to school and work yesterday but Reina was a little droopy last night and her fever was back this morning so at some point I came to my senses and thought - ear infection. We dropped Will off at school for the morning again, despite his protestations of "But I'm sick too!" (Translation: I'd rather stay home and play with all of my legos and Capt Jack Sparrow and watch cartoons, thanks.) and headed to the doctor. Knowing the long wait that would be ahead of us in the treatment room, I grabbed a copy of the latest Reader's Digest because there are usually enough cat food ads and pictures of animals to keep Reina entertained.

Fast forward a few minutes later and we are flipping through the pages, looking at a cute picture of a baby monkey and its mommy and then bam! We turn the page and see this.

Yep, that's Kermit the Frog in handcuffs. Long story short, it was a jokey article about the year in review and how some website had a whole Occupy Sesame Street thing going on and blah blah blah. Reina sees that and FREAKS OUT! Why is that guy pushing that muppet?! Why is he wearing those things?! (pointing to handcuffs) What happened?!

I kept trying to explain that it was just a silly picture and Kermit wasn't really in trouble and I kept trying to turn the page. She would have none of it and her consternation was only interrupted when the doctor finally came in the room.

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I thought that would be the end of the story until Will came downstairs after his nap, while I'm writing this post, sees the picture and says "Why is Kermit going to jail?"

Darn you, Reader's Digest.

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P.S. Glenn is confused why I labeled this post "reasons why I need an Ipad." BECAUSE, if I had an Ipad, I could have taken it with me to the doctor's office and entertained Reina with educational games and activities that would not have freaked her out and scarred her for life. Like a handcuffed Kermit. Just putting it out there....

Sibling togetherness

Nothing exciting to report from our first week of 2012 so instead I'll talk about well the Bronco Babies are getting along right now, as a surefire way to guarantee that tomorrow will be spent with non-stop fighting. Will still likes his alone time and will spend hours in his room constructing complicated Lego battles or combining Legos, little plastic soldiers and his Capt Jack Sparrow action figure into a mish-mash of pirate/adventure/bad buys/battles. Reina will spend approximately 10.5 seconds playing by herself in her room before she comes downstairs to help me make dinner/do laundry/lay on the couch/knit/read my book.

Shhhhh.... don't tell Captain Jack that he's actually using a wooden cake server as a weapon.

But when Will's not busy in Will-land, he and Reina can play for hours pretty happily. She and her baby Jenny accompany Will on pirate adventures. When Will's busy in a Star Wars adventure, Reina's right there with her play kitchen making cupcakes for all of the rebel fighters.

It may sound like strict gender roles are alive and well in the play room but sometimes Reina will pick up a sword and wave it around for a few minutes. Will definitely likes to play with the kitchen from time to time and he's been known to rescue baby Jenny from the bad pirates by throwing her across the room to safety on the sofa.

Reina continues with her horse obession. Not satisfied with Lucky-the-plastic-horse-that-just-sits-there, this morning she attempted to ride her brother. He was game for a while.

Uh oh, looks like the horse has fallen asleep.

Wait! Come back here horse! It's like the Wild Horse Race at the rodeo. Who's going to win? My bets on Trigger. Will eventually won because he can run faster and he made the escape to his room. For now.....