It’s February and we hadn’t had the plague since the holidays, which means we were due. And let me tell you, it’s doing a real number on the Crocco household.
As usual, it started with the 6-year-old.
What’s amazing to me is that sickness almost always arrives in the dead of night, which is what happened this time around. It was the long weekend for President’s Day. He stayed up late Saturday night watching a movie, gave us the usual bedtime protest, and then fell asleep like normal. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Then, at about 1:30 a.m., I heard him calling me from his bedroom.
“Mom … Mom … Mo”—
The third summoning of my name was cut off by the unmistakable sound of gagging. I’m not sure how to type that out phonetically, but I’m confident you get it. I rushed in just in time to miss catching his puke in the garbage can. So, after cleaning him up, changing the sheets, and getting the “puke bucket,” as we like to call it, ready, I soothed him back to sleep.
In denial, I tried to tell myself that he simply had a little reflux from eating popcorn late at night and sleeping on his stomach, and that a little something “just came back up.” He wasn’t sick.
I was proven wrong when he woke up three more times in the night, vomiting, with fever and clammy skin.
During one of those times he stopped to ask me, “Momma, if I’m better after this night, Owen can still come over tomorrow, right?” I had to inform him that his scheduled play date would in fact be put on hold indefinitely.
Sorry, kid, but the party stops when someone pukes.
So, Sunday he spent on the couch with a fever, although thankfully the puking stopped. He was much cooler when he went to sleep and he woke up the next morning fever free and much more like himself. Fortunately he had off for President’s Day, so he had some time to recuperate before heading back to school.
And then, by mid-morning, the snot arrived. And it has been dripping like a leaky faucet ever since.
Now, I feel like “back in my day,” you either got a stomach bug OR you got a cold/flu. You didn’t just get everything thrown at you all at once. Now you get the whole kit and caboodle. You can’t breathe at the same time that you can’t be more than a foot away from the toilet.
Anyway, throughout this whole time my husband and I were diligent not to cross-contaminate anything with the child, in the hopes of being able to avoid sickness ourselves. It’s nearly impossible, since the kid is clingy when he’s sick, breathing all over us and touching us nonstop,
He’s gotten much better through the years at using tissues and covering his mouth when he coughs or sneezes, and we were constantly ushering him to the bathroom to wash his hands after using said tissues. We’re still working on getting him to stop licking his upper lip when his nose is dripping, which is one of the most disgusting things these kids do!
We put the throw blankets in the wash, hosed down the decorative pillows with Lysol, and even cracked a window despite the cold temperatures. We were really feeling good about it.
Monday afternoon we ventured out to run some errands since, even though his nose was running, he had been fever free for more than 24 hours and we figured could use some fresh air. My husband got him an Icee from the gas station as a little treat and a sugary pick-me-up.
As we walked back to the truck, Mikey said to me, “Momma, try this. The blue tastes like cotton candy.”
“Really?” I said. “I thought blue was blue raspberry.”
Then, without even thinking about it, I accepted the offered drink, brought the straw to my lips, and took a big slurp.
My husband froze.
I stopped in my tracks.
Mikey just looked at us.
And that, dear readers, is why I write this column from the confines of my bed, with a cold rag on my forehead and steaming cup of tea at my side.
Parenthood is not for the weak.
Holly Crocco is editor of the Putnam County Times/Press and mother of a 6-year-old boy. She can be reached at editorial@putnampresstimes.com.
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