Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Thanksgiving Vomit

Have you noticed that it's been quiet on the internet lately?

I'm not talking about how those annoying tweets between Ashton and Demi have finally stopped - I'm talking about this blog. I haven't posted in over ten days.  Did you miss me?

Thanksgiving week was pretty rough.  By comparison, it reminded me of how thankful I am for the "normal" weeks that I usually complain about.

It was a very poignant Thanksgiving lesson.  One that I would have been just fine not learning and remaining ungrateful like everybody else.

During the wee hours of Monday morning, I awoke to the obvious sounds of my husband throwing up in the bathroom.  So I walked in there, half asleep, as he was brushing his teeth, and I said, "Did you just throw up?"  (I'm a freakin' genius, I tell you.)

He thought maybe he got it out of his system, so we went back to bed.  But unfortunately, "it" turned out to be a stomach virus with a one-hour puke cycle.  This stomach bug was was more punctual than I was to my own wedding.  

Brian didn't move the next day or much the day after that.  He sipped on Gatorade and snacked on the occasional saltine cracker.  Bless him.

On Tuesday evening, he still felt awful.

He said, "If this is what pregnancy is like, then it's really terrible."
And I said, "Oh, yeah.  It's just like that.  And then, of course, don't forget that your face breaks out, you gain 50 pounds, your back hurts, you can't tie your shoes, you get violated by your OB-GYN once a week, and then you have an 18 hour labor, birth, and recovery."

Sorry, hon.  Probably not the best time for me to be a one-upper.

But by Wednesday, Brian was feeling great.  And nobody else got the virus.  Yay!  All that sheet washing and Lysol cleaning actually worked!

On Thursday, we enjoyed a great Thanksgiving lunch with our family.  We ate too much, we talked about the weather and politics, and we enjoyed some wonderful time together.

That night, I still felt too full to eat dinner.  Man, I must have eaten more than I thought.

I should have known that something was up because I can never eat too much.  That's like me taking too many vacations or doing the Roger Rabbit too many times at a dance club.  It's impossible.

I woke up about 3 AM feeling sick as a dog, which brings me to two questions:
1) Why do all stomach bugs hit in the middle of the night?  
2) Why do we say that we are "sick as a dog"?  Dogs hardly ever get sick, and if they do, they aren't laid up in the bed watching Lifetime movies for the next 2 days.   

Let me tell you, turkey and dressing doesn't taste nearly as good the second time around.  I guess I should have been more specific when I said that I wanted leftovers later.

Bailey got sick, too, within hours of me.  My poor baby threw up nine times.  And yes, she kept a tally.

Whenever Bailey has a stomach bug, she's like an old war veteran who sits in a rocking chair on the front porch and tells you every detail of every battle.

Bailey can accurately recount the circumstances of each and every puke.  And she'll be happy to do that while you're trying to eat a chili dog.  It's, like, the grossest gift that my child possesses.

I didn't get out of bed for a full day.  I didn't turn on the television. I didn't turn on the light.  I just laid there, occasionally glancing at the clock, and kind of hoping that a big asteroid would hit the house and put me out of my misery.

Drew, however, was fine as usual.  I think he's superhuman.  Drew is 3-years-old has never had an upset stomach.  He has never thrown up.  He has never had strep throat or an ear infection or the flu.  The only time that he has ever been sick is a cough that he picked up when he started preschool.

I need to be careful.  If this information gets into the wrong hands, some secret government agency might force Brian and I to have hundreds of children to create a supergenetic race.  And I don't do pregnancy very well, as was pointed out earlier in this blog post.  

I couldn't eat anything for days, so I actually lost weight during the week of Thanksgiving.  Hey, there should be an award for that!  Move over, Jenny Craig.

The worst part about being sick was that I didn't feel like decorating for Christmas.  Instead of hanging tinsel and garland, my house was decorated with puke-stained laundry and empty Gatorade bottles.  Talk about putting a little bah-humbug into your holiday cheer.

And I didn't go Christmas shopping because my Black Friday was clearly a little darker than it should have been.  I didn't even get to watch Peppermint Patty yell at Charlie Brown for serving popcorn for Thanksgiving dinner!

I feel cheated.  I demand a do-over, and one without any Thanksgiving vomit, thank you very much.

Say the words "cornbread dressing" or "pumpkin pie" and I might barf.  In fact, just typing those words makes me feel a little queezy.  I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to eat them again.

So next year for Thanksgiving, I'm thinking Dominos.