Juliette, vindicated

Poor Juliette was sick this weekend. We had a great time at Auntie Lisa and Uncle Russ's "not quite done" housewarming party at which Juliette ate at least 2 pieces of chocolate cake and god knows what else.

That night she threw up all over herself. And again the next morning.

I told her that she ate too much chocolate cake. It was the cutest and saddest thing to hear her say "I ate too much choclate cake. My tummy hurts. Oww mommy, hooold me."

But then yesterday I was sitting at me desk at work when I noticed that I felt really really nauseous. I walked to the bathroom, just in case, but the feeling passed so I packed up my things and left. As I arrive at the day care, the feeling hits me again and this time there is no stopping it. Anne, the lovely wonderful director, noticed that I wasn't quite right and ran with me to let me into the grown up bathroom. Let me tell you, I made it just in time.

So began a long evening of me becoming intimately familiar with our toilet, and noticing all the nooks and crannies around said toilet that the cleaning lady clearly hasn't been cleaning. Poor Greg immediately recognized that I was of no use, and he made a valiant effort to mind the girls on his own; but it turns out that Juliette has developed a fever and wanted nothing more then to snuggle with me in my sick bed. She was hot and listless, I was hot and cold and hot and cold and trying really hard not to move because everytime I did it made me want to throw up again.

So now it is 1:00 am. Juliette has woken a few times, feverish and sweaty, and Greg has managed to deal with it. Cosette is beginning to whimper in her crib. Greg goes to check on her. He stays with her for a few minutes, she quiets, he leaves. 5 minutes later she is crying again. We try to ignore it for a while but finally I suggest that he go check on her. At which points he disovers that Cosette, too, has caught the bug. He brings her up to me to hold while he changes the sheets in the crib. She smells like puke, her hair is matted with puke. She is dry heaving still, and very happy to see me. I immediately forget my own illness in my guilt over letting my 1 year old roll around in her throw up for 20 minutes. As payback, she spits up all over me. Now I am drenched, she is drenched, and I feel like I have to throw up again.

Shall I continue? Let us just say this. Somewhere around 3:00 we all drifted off to sleep. At 5:30 Juliette started calling for me so I went to her room, where we slept for a while in the lazy boy chair. At 7:09 we got up; Juliette seemed cheerful (at first) and I was able to manage because I knew my mom would be showing up in 21 short minutes. I call my sister for reinforcements- she answers her phone in a sleepy panic "What, what's the matter?" and I say with a note of desperation "I need you!". Thank goodness for summer vacation.

Now the girls are at mom's, with Lisa there for backup; I've emailed everyone at work; Greg has got me some ginger ale and pepto-bismol; the pile of puky laundry is in the wash; and I have nothing to do but rest.

Greg tells me I've broken the cardinal rule; I'm not allowed to be sick when the girls are sick. Or, really, pretty much ever. Hey, that would be fine by me.

All I can think of is that I told poor Juliette that she ate too much chocolate cake. She was miserably sick, and I blamed her for it. Well, as she sat in my bed listening to me throwing up over and over and over again, if she had been a little bit older I would have heard these words "I told you I was sick. I told you so."

Juliette, vindicated.