This post is from last year ’round this time. Since I have it readily available, I don’t feel it necessary to write a new post, as the account of my life two weeks ago is almost precisely the same as what you’ll read here, with one exception.
This year K is older and wiser.
We tried to teach her how to use the hurl bucket, so she was no longer upchucking all over the house (and us). After I gave her instructions, the bucket, and she was horizontal on the couch watching Dora, I went into the kitchen for… Whatever I went into the kitchen for… And heard the telltale sound of the wretched wretching. I walked back to the couch and found K; still on her back, but spewing spectacularly into the bucket, which she was holding upside-down on top of her face. The puke was dripping everywhere, her hair was soaked in green chunks, and K was genuinely shocked at how miserably wrong my directions had been pertaining to the use of the hurl bucket.

Enjoy Throwback Thursday.

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Last week on Wednesday morning, K started having  (This is the point where you decide whether or not you want to keep reading. This post is not for the faint of heart.)

diarrhea. There. I said it.

She was fine otherwise and running around like usual, so we went on with our lives. Naturally, when the preschool informed me on Wednesday afternoon that K had had a shitty, shitty, day, (literally, not figuratively) I pretended to be insanely surprised.
(Whaaaaa?)
Although the Pedialyte in her lunchbox may have given me away.

THURSDAY

K got sick first, a full day before the rest of us; blowing chunks like an automatic lawn sprinkler at dawn.
Chug-chug-chug-chug-whirrrrrr
The walls, the floor, dripping down out of the tiny cracks in the ceiling, she was straight out of the exorcist.
It sucked, but we managed, as we had not yet begun our own appointments in the Oval Office.

FRIDAY

It was… My time. I try to take a zen approach when reviewing the menu. I watch TV (preferably old sitcoms) while meditating and chanting:
“I will not puke tonight I will not puke tonight I will not puke tonight.” Sometimes it even works.
The husband fell next, 2am, and judging from the sounds I heard coming from the bathroom, Uncle Ralph had called on the big white telephone, and the husband had answered.

Then J.
I was extremely busy not barfing in the living room. Any small move on my part would have resulted in the immediate jettison of all chunky cargo, but the husband was retched out. I nominated him to clean up the child and the upchuck in J’s room, which he did. This is especially impressive since there was still a vomit comet as well as a shart ejecting itself from J’s orifices (orifii?) during the time the husband was working. STILL, somehow, the husband managed to get the child clean and settled on the couch before he went back to the bathroom to drive the porcelain bus himself. He deserves some kind of award for that.
Like a Pukey or something.
Maybe I’ll get him a statuette.
K slept. I suppose she had done her time.

We divvied up the buckets and watched “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” because our only other option was food related and… Not three, not two, but only one payment of 19.95. Plus, the TV remote wasn’t immediately available, and there weren’t any volunteers to go look for it.

SATURDAY

We were lepers. We were pariahs in our own families and community. If they could’ve, the neighbors would have draped plastic over our house and piped o2 in and out. As is, I’m pretty sure I saw a hazmat suit as I dragged my unwilling body out to the car to get Gatorade and crackers.
Why would I go, you ask?

Well, relatively early in the day we had begun to speak of the unspeakable – one of us would have to go out for supplies. I submitted that in the interest of myself, the husband should go. His suggestion was almost identical.

Throughout the day, we played ginger ale and crackers survivor. We began to hoard Pepto Bismol and Immodium. We had a staring contest. Eventually, someone had to help J with his acid chowder, and since I was up anyhow, what’s another 5 miles?
I gathered my strength, got my keys and swore to myself that I would NOT:

de-eat in the car, blow my groceries in the store, fertilize the bushes or shart. That’s the big one. No sharts. I had no spare pants, and I had no choice but to go to the closest grocery store (where like Cheers, everybody knows your name). I’d never get over a public sharting. I can’t even pee in a public restroom without a complete fortress of solitude, so I made a plan; just in case.

Ahem.
Should I shart at the grocery store:
1. Back away casually from the cart.
2. Place the super saver circular casually over the affected area.
3. Casually back out of the grocery store.
4. Abort! Abort! Abort! Drive home with super saver circular between shart and leather seat.
5. Never go there again. Ever. Even if I have to drive three hours each way for a loaf of bread. Never.

It’s foolproof.

At the grocery store, I might as well have been walking around asking people if I could eat their brains. I was given a fifty foot berth in every direction (a good thing, really, since the realistic probability of a shart was way higher than I would admit at the time). Luckily, neither yak nor shart came for me then.
The shart cart (all part of my plan) ended up serving a dual purpose; as face plant happened to be a real risk on numerous occasions. Unfortunately, in my half-conscious grab for sick people food, I accidentally came home with onion flavored Ritz crackers. The mere sight of those crackers caused all of us to nearly jazz up the carpet (it was a very close call) again, which would’ve totally blown all my hard work. They still haven’t forgiven me. I don’t blame them.
Why do those crackers even exist? Good God, why? Why???
I’m gagging even now just thinking about it.
The rest of the day was spent nibbling crackers (non-onion) and then watching as the crackers took the short cut out anyhow. Good times.

SUNDAY

Better. Fewer sharts. (The majority of actual sharts have been left out of this post to protect the innocent. Just know I argued to include them) On Sunday, nobody went for the ol’ second chew.
Things were getting better, thank you to the good and gracious immune system. Someone turned on the food network at some point; retribution was swift and severe.

To any of you out there that know us personally: Sorry.
If it makes it any better, we’re healthy now.
It probably won’t, though.