Sick day

My youngest stayed home from school today.

Last night at 2:00 a.m. he woke up crying and I bolted out of bed. I had fallen asleep early with the TV watching me, and my room was illuminated by this. I met him at the bottom of the stairs just in time to see him hurl on the rug (why is it that whatever it is that is nasty seems to end up on the upholstery or carpet, when I have mostly wood floors in this house? Literally, only two rooms have wall to wall, and someday I will budget for leather furniture!).

I ushered him into the bathroom where he finished emptying the contents of his dinner into the toilet. Poor little guy. He was sobbing and sniffing but didn't want to blow his nose, which made me cringe. "I hate throwing up," he wailed. "We all do, honey!" When he told his older brother that this morning, his brother told him, "sometimes you feel better afterwards, though..." which is so true, and must have been the case this time around, because it did not happen again.

I thought he might be okay to go to school, but he didn't want to eat, so I wasn't really sure, which is why he stayed home, even though I had a grand total of 8 meetings (some of them overlapping) on my calendar, as well as it being my day to be a greeter at the elementary school.

One of my Bigs took the bus, the other was going to walk with me, but between him and my youngest, they weren't ready in time and we wound up driving. I didn't want to be late because I wasn't sure if there was going to be a replacement for my fellow greeter who was not able to join me today. Both of the Bigs ignored me once we got to school, and my oldest acted embarassed when I dashed in to the lobby to confirm that his field trip was "tomorrow, not today, right?" (I was sure I had paid and signed the permission slip, but I do like to know on any given day where exactly my kids are!) I did manage to elbow touch my middle son when he walked by me after getting off the bus.

I skipped one of my meetings, but miraculously made it to all the others, including the one where I did a live web demo, which was amazing. (Thank you, God!) My son really wasn't his usual self; hardly a peep all day. He was sleeping when it was time to pick up the Bigs for pitching clinic and I carried him out wrapped in a blanket. He slept for the ensuing half hour in the car. Oh, something funny...with all the snow melting lately, the missing baseball gloves from last year were revealed! I can't imagine WHEN the kids had taken them outside (since they would have had soccer balls and footballs out in the fall)...and I thought for sure everything had been picked up from the yard before the snow fell. I also found a hat and two mismatched gloves and a bunch of random balls. And dog poop.

I wound up doing three loads of laundry and cleaning the carpet, too. The dog helped a little with that; I won't go into detail.

My youngest and I remade his bed with fresh sheets and blankets and apparently it looked so appealing that his brother wanted to sleep in it with him. I squeezed in beside them and read a chapter of Percy Jackson and then "A Fish out of Water" to my youngest after his older brother was softly snoring. (I wonder if they will sleep all night like that, and why do I have the dog in my room?)