The 1am bug

Our house has been "blessed" with another round of a tummy bug.  The first time this happened was last fall when pretty much everyone I knew was dealing with this with their kids.  This time, it kind of came out of the blue.  I mean first of all, it's June!  Isn't summertime the few months of the year where viruses aren't being spread around as much, when parents (or anyone for that matter) can get some sort of break from real sick days?

Anyway, this one has been dubbed (by me) the 1am bug, because when Evan first got it on Monday night (actually Tuesday morning) it was around 1am.  He woke up crying, which he's been doing more often lately (either just wanting daddy to come in and sleep with him, or being scared of something maybe, or maybe teething, who knows), but this time we heard the cough/choking sound that makes us rush up to check on him.  John was the first to get out of bed only to find Evan in his crib vomiting, thus calling out for me to bring a bowl and some towels.

Evan got to lay on the twin mattress on his bedroom floor with daddy the rest of that night.  He was up about every 1-2 hours to throw up a little bit more, but easily went back to sleep after each of those episodes.  For me, while I was still (trying to) sleep in my own bed, I kept getting woken via the sounds of his cries on the monitor every time he had another episode.  Then I'd go up to help replace the towel that was beneath him and come back to my bed after that episode had ended.

I was a zombie the next morning.  Evan, however, seemed bright-eyed and bushy-tailed come morning.  So, we figured he was feeling better and went about our normal morning rituals with him: warm milk in a sippy cup while snuggling in our bed, and then downstairs for breakfast.  However, as he sat in his high chair for breakfast, he kept refusing the foods that he normally enjoyed for this morning meal.  He didn't want any scrambled eggs (ok, more for me I guess!), he pushed away toast, and he said no to oatmeal too.  Why?  Well, if only we'd have figured it out sooner, but he wasn't feeling well.  I'm pretty sure that the milk was the LAST thing he needed that morning.  He ended up throwing up all over himself, his high chair tray, and most of the floor and space around him.  It was bad.  Poor guy.  He felt so much better again after that, but we as parents got the memo a little late that we shouldn't have given him dairy so soon after a bout with a tummy bug.

Luckily it was Tuesday, a day that Evan stays home with John.  We instilled the BRAT diet on him after that point and it helped.  He didn't get sick again the rest of the day.  We kept him off dairy the following day too, just to be sure, but alas, he was better.

On the other hand, John and I were fearing the worst about when/if/how bad we'd get this bug.  John seemed to fare okay for the first day and then maybe got a touch of it.  I, however, started having unsettled tummy after everything I ate on Tuesday.  This lingered into Wednesday as well.  I avoid dairy those first few days, just to be sure as well.  By yesterday, I figured I'm feeling fine and slipped a bit of dairy into my diet.  And so I'm not sure if it was the dairy on a tummy that was probably still fighting off this bug, or just that it took my body some time for the bug to really show its teeth, but around 1am last night I awoke to deal with its vengeance.  And while I immediately started the BRAT diet this morning eating only half of a lightly toasted bagel, that was not enough for me.  Nope...I was sick again within 30 minutes.  So now I've been directed to stick to the clear liquid diet for most of today.  If I can stomach that, then I'm allowed to start BRAT later tonight, but was advised to stay off dairy for 3 days.  (sigh)  Thus, I'm home sick today, and John and I had to cancel our anniversary date night tonight as a result too.  :(

On the flip side, I am trying to look at this as a gift of sorts.  A real reason to just stay home all day and relax.  Evan is at daycare, John is at work, and I could use some baby girl and me alone time given how busy I've been at work the past weeks/months, as well as I could use some time to catch up on missed sleep from all the 1am wake ups this past week.