The Exploding Kid

My oldest son has the stomach flu. Or something. All I know is he exploded last night. Yesterday afternoon, we had noticed that he would get upset really quickly when things didn't go just his way (which happened a lot), and we also noticed that his eyes were quite red. We assumed that he was tired, and planned to put him to bed a bit early.

Having done so, a few hours later we found him sitting at the top of the stairs. He was just sitting there in a daze and when I asked why he was sitting there, he replied that he was waiting for us to come since he had called us (which he hadn't). I have no idea how long he was there, either. Nevertheless, since he has a tendency to be completely clueless when he wakes in the middle of the night, I stood him up and took him to his room.

I was met by an awful stench. Turning on the light, I found that his bed looked like a massive bean burrito bomb had blown up on it! It was awful. Somehow he had vomited while sleeping -- and a lot of stuff came out. It was all over his pillow, his sheets, the comforter, the bed head -- it had even oozed down the head board and soaked the floor. None of what was there looked even remotely like what we ate for dinner, not that it matters -- it was uber-gross.

My wife and I spent about an hour thereafter getting things cleaned up. He needed a shower, so he got in and basically stood there staring at the wall for at least half an hour. His clothes, his sheets, his comforter, and his pillow and pillowcases all needed to be washed. We also use mattress pads on all the beds in our house (just in case ... whatever ... happens, like it did last night), and that clearly needed to be washed. We got the disinfectant wipes and started on the headboard. My wife got out the steam cleaner and worked on the pools on the floor.

He has a bunk bed in his room, even though he's the only one that sleeps in there; we got it in preparation for moving his younger brother in there, and we just haven't done that, yet. Oddly enough, he had ended up sleeping on the lower bunk last night, and we are very grateful that was so, otherwise we might've ended up cleaning the ceiling fan and the window curtains, too.

We pulled his mattress off and put it by the floor by the door. We then gave him a bowl to keep by each side of his bed, and spread out some old towels between there and the bathroom. He really is the best little kid when it comes to having the stomach flu. After the initial explosion, he's extremely responsible about getting to the toilet. Nevertheless, what followed was still tough for him (and us), as he was up every two to three hours at the toilet, vomiting or dry-heaving. It wasn't a very fun night for anybody.

Now we're worried about the weekend. My wife and I have a big commitment for Saturday and if either of us gets sick, that'd be nothing short of miserable. We also wouldn't want to leave the kids with a babysitter if they were sick, so we're holding our breath right now that what he has will be gone by then and that nobody else catches it.