Stomach Flu Liveblog

Well it looks like I'm strapped in for the vomit hell ride. As you can see, I just love that term.

So half an hour ago I started to feel a little nauseous. So far, rounds No. 1 and 2 have shared different anatomical parts of my body, if you know what I mean.

Now, you must be wondering to yourself, why live blog the stomach flu, Kris? Is there a screw loose?

Well yes. But I also was just pacing the floor, waiting to throw up again, and I thought to myself: Isn't there something I could be doing that would A) make better use of this time, and B) take my mind off the fact that I'm waiting to throw up again? And seriously, one has to wonder if anyone in the history of mankind has ever live-blogged the stomach flu before. Most people, and I'll admit I'm guessing here, usually roll around in bed moaning and dreading between bouts. If I keep busy, furiously typing, will it make this more bearable?

Well, we'll see. I wish this was actually a chat. We could all place money bets on what round No. 3 will be ... I also wish Blogger had a track function on how often posts are read, because I have to believe that this would be the lowest viewed post of all time.

Honestly, if you're still reading at this point, what is wrong with you??

God, this is more fun than I thought it would be. So let's do a Wilder update at this point. He's sleeping soundly right now. Though he's ceased all random acts of making sick, he's still clearly recovering. When I picked him up from daycare today, he had dark circles under his eyes that could rival those of someone many times his age and stress level. This notwithstanding, he was also in his daycare crib, babbling incessantly to Camille, who cribs next to him, who was sound asleep. Making moony faces at her closed eyes, clearly desiring a playmate in his caged, fresh-from-a-great-nap, I'm-so-GD-happy-I-could-crawl outlook on life.

Hmmmm, why haven't I gotten sick yet? Keep typing keep typing keep typing ...

So in typical fashion, I thought: Well kid, you spent the last couple days feeling horrible ... that deserves PRESENTS!!! So, with my friend and Wilder's buddy Judy in tow, we went shopping. He got a new Ugly Doll (Ice Bat), a velociraptor puppet and two new books.

This is going to be really disappointing if I don't get sick again, isn't it? Oh ... wait ... be right back ...

Well, whew. That would have been very embarrassing if I'd had this big build-up for the stomach flu and then didn't get sick again. A big disappointment to my readers, I'm sure, though I'd be very surprised if at this point I had any left. Wait, I should be timing this. OK, it's 10:13 p.m. Really, I should be in bed!!! I had no idea what time it was. Why can't I get sick at a decent hour so that my sleep isn't interfered with?

OK, so while I was in the bathroom just now, I was thinking: There are two kinds of predators. Those who find prey, take it down with a swift jerk of the neck and devour it. And there are those that find prey, stalk it, bite it a few times to open up some flesh wounds, watch it crawl away slowly to where it just thinks it might make it, only to have the predator pounce on it again ... thus playing with it until, slowly but surely and torturously, it bleeds out. And THEN gets devoured.

Yeah. I'm pretty sure this stomach flu is of the latter nature. Bah. I'd prefer the "let 'er rip" variety, because then I could get it over with quickly and hit the sack. But who can go to sleep knowing they're going to be back in the loo in 15 minutes busting a gut?

Seriously, who do I have to pay around here to just open up a pathway already? And why do I think I'm going to regret those words??

So do you want to know what Jerry cooked for dinner tonight? Yeah, I didn't think so. It was delicious, though. I'll say that before I no longer have the ability to. Oh ... be right back ...

10:25 p.m. -- OK, good thing I got that bit about Jer's dinner out before that last go round. And that snide little comment about opening up a pathway ... it worked!

So here are my hopes and aspirations for this illness:

1. That I'll handle it with half as much aplomb as my 8-month-old son (though I'm serioulsy praying that nothing will come out my nose);

2. That, like Wilder, it'll peak quickly and be over; and

3. I'll lose at least 5 lbs. for July 4 weekend, since we'll probably go to the pool at some point.

OK, this is getting harder. Now that I've pretty much emptied myself of all vomitable material, my stomach is cramping up, looking for any vestiges of something it can push north through the esophageal region. Or, oh wait ... yes, I'm gonna go with maybe south as well. Through the ... well, you know what region that would be, right?

Let's have an aside for a moment. I'm sure we're both getting fed up (Get it? Ged up? oh, I crack myself up!) with the whole stomach flu bit. So Jerry's in the room with me, reading AND playing computer games. Hold on, let's see what's he's reading ...

John Stewart's "Pictures of Naked Famous People." Let's ask him why he's reading and playing computer games at the SAME time.

"Cuz a lot of this involves flying around and not doing anything but waiting to fly around."

OK, so that wasn't the scintillating answer I was looking for. Though I don't know what possibly could have been a scintillating answer to that question.

Did I mention I just had a sneezing fit? As if puking isn't enough, I'm now apparently daring my stomach to seize up on me again by sneezing violently many times in a row. Oh, and Jerry called me Typhoid Kristi. Oh, the empathy. It's thick in here. Books, computer games, and snide comments. Of course, if he was the one sick, I of course would be waiting outside the bathroom door with cool compresses for his forehead, a bottle of Gatorade and back rubs. Of course, I think by live-blogging this in the same room as him I've given the false impression that I'm doing fine with this. And, in fact, I think I've found a rather novel approach to the stomach flu. Write, try (but fail) to be clever and witty, and just keep typing furiously through all streams of (dull, dim-witted) consciousness and the stomach flu is really quite manageable.

Oh, and that bit about cold compresses and the like, that was crap. I'd be reading in bed calling out, "You cool hon? Need anything?" And I'd probably be demanding details, because, uh, clearly, I'm into stuff like this.

It's 10:38. Let's assess. I think I might be through the worst of this. If that's the case, it's followed Wilder's path pretty well. Think I'll wrap this up, watch half an hour of World Poker Tour and see if anything else comes up and, barring that, sip some fluids and hit the sack.

This has been fun folks. Let's do it aga ... oh wait. Nevermind.

When it rains, it projectiles

Well, we haven't quite gotten off the crud-bus from last week, but that didn't stop Wilder from strapping us in for a drive on the vomit hell ride last night. The most unsettling observation: Heretofore, I naively thought humans only puked out one facial orifice. But, in fact, puke can come out THREE. With disgustingly great gusto.

Wilder is much better today. He's downgraded from cookie-tossing to a mild case of the runs. Still nothing but Pedialyte to eat, but he seems quite OK with that.

They say these things happen in threes. I can't imagine what is next, but I look forward to it with great, unsettling dread.

Scenes From Vacay's Last Day

Well, I woke up this morning with very ambitious plans to unpack, clean the house and do laundry. Get things back in order, basically, before we all return to our normal lives tomorrow.

Then I stopped. And thought. "What the hell am I thinking? This is our last day of vacation, and we got some making up to do in the fun department."

So we started off our day at breakfast at Garden Cafe's patio (that's where the pic of Jer and Wilder above was taken). For Texas, it was pleasant outdoors this morning. Tolerable in the shade with a breeze that made it even somewhat cool. Wilder went crazy with blueberry-tinged applesauce while Jerry and I stuck to eggs, coffee and such.

Afterwards we headed across the street to the park, where Wilder engaged in his new favorite activity: swinging. Once his cheeks got flushed, though, we tumbled into our air-conditioned car, swung into Target for swim diapers, then headed home so W could get a nap in before heading to the pool.

Pool! Fun times!! We swam, lazed around on a blanket, played with toys, read smutty gossip mags, ate hot links and milk (Wilder), splashed, sucked on toy fishies (again, Wilder) and just generally had one helluva good time. Then home for steaks on the grill with wine, and now Wilder, though you would think he'd be wiped after such a day, is in his crib loudly and continuously protesting bedtime.

Oh well, I'm sure he's just upset his first vacation is over and he's got to return to the grind of daycare tomorrow. Poor kid.

Pics below. Ahhhh, a great end to a unexpected vacation.

Wilder kicks back at breakfast . After this pic was taken, Hercules here moved the whole table with his feet. Wilder = future World's Strongest Man.  

After breakfast, we went across the street to the neighborhood park. As you can plainly see, in Wilder's view, swings are THE BEST THINGS IN THE WORLD!!! 

Wilder and I on the slide. He liked it, but nothing beats a swing in Wilder's world.  

Later in the afternoon, we went to the pool. Wilder kicked around in his floaty, drank water and played with his toys on the blanket in sun-dappled grass.  

Trees make the best mobiles. 

Wilder gets caught up on his smut mags. 

Family vacation pic (Wilder: "What the ...? This was a vacation???") 

Wilder's Viral Vacay

Well, we returned from our Colorado vacation yesterday afternoon, and let's just say it didn't quite go as we expected.

It started off well. Wilder was all smiles on the way to the airport. Packing and dealing with the multiple baby-related items at the airport went smoother than expected. Wilder slept nearly the whole plane ride. And, for the first couple of days in Denver, we had a ball, starting off our trip with a stay at Jay, Deb, Colin and Allie's house in Arvada. They gave us a parents' day off on Monday, offering to watch Wilder while we went downtown, ate and drank beer at Wynkoop Brewery with friends, wandered around REI, rented a baby backpack and saw a movie.

As we returned home, we were greeted at the door by Allie, who told us that Wilder had a 100.6-degree fever. I immediately had a sinking feeling, but everyone seemed to think it was probably allergies or teething or something equally harmless.

Let's just cut to the chase. On Tuesday, Wilder worsened. He was running a fever of nearly 102 and was clearly in a lot of discomfort. I called our doctor's office in Dallas who urged us to take him to the emergency room. We got there, waited a couple hours as all manner of weirdos clutching various body parts got in ahead of us. At around 5:00, we were finally admitted to the after-hours pediatric services unit. As the nurse and doctor poked and prodded Wilder, he screamed basically non-stop for the better part of half an hour or more. It sucked donkey balls, to put it mildly. Diagnosis? Viral infection and ear infection in his left ear. Remedy: amoxicillin, Motrin, ear drops and plenty of rest.

More cuttage to the chaseage: On Wednesday, I woke up with the virus firmly lodged in my nose and throat. At this point the vacay took a further dip South when we decided that, since we were Typhoid Family, we'd check into a La Quinta (actually, we tried three hotels prior to La Quinta -- turns out Colorado's a pretty hot vacation spot in late June. Who'da thunk?). I coughed and sniffed and slept and cried and felt sorry for my poor family's crappy trip. Wilder cried and ran at the nose and refused to sleep. And Jerry tried to maintain his typically sunny outlook despite the fact that he was saddled with two snotty, miserable traveling companions. Karen called and insisted that the next day we come to her house, knowing Wilder probably would no longer be contagious (and therefore not put Reagan at risk), and that she could quarantine Jerry and I if need be.

On Thursday, poor Jer woke up with the crud. I felt a ton better and so did Wilder, so Jerry slept the day away at Karen's while we all went to the park and played (man was W. happy to be out doing something fun finally!) and watched the kids get to know each other.

And, finally, on Friday, with Jer feeling better and W. and I feeling almost back to new, we had a GREAT day. We visited my brother at his work and places in Denver we loved when we lived there. We had wimpies with cheese and Spitfire wings at Pints Pub (where the waitress recognized Jerry from his frequent trips there more than five years prior). We drove through our old 'hood and reminisced ("Isn't that the park where you guys rolled the car driving it down those steps?") We drove through Cherry Creek and grinned at how even the most poseurish of Denver neighborhoods can't hold a candle to Dallas. That night, we had dinner with my brother's family, followed by poker until midnight with them and Karen and Eric.

So, overall, it was not the trip we envisioned, but it was salvageable in the end. It turned out to be a trip of firsts for Wilder. First major sickness. First time he called Jerry "da-da" (day after Father's Day -- it was so cool). And Wilder cut his first tooth the second to last day. It just barely broke the skin -- we'll post a pic as soon as it's more noticeable.

We're glad to be home, if not exactly glad to be home from Colorado, if that makes sense. We love it there. Wilder's sleeping the day away blissfully in his own crib, and I'm pretty sure he's happiest of all to be back in his environment. We set him on the floor yesterday to play and watch a Baby Einstein DVD while we cooked dinner, and he rolled around screaming happily for 20 minutes.

One more thing: He's "thisclose" to crawling. I'm pretty sure it'll happen in the next couple of weeks. It seems our boy did a lot of growing up in the last couple weeks. As I'm pretty sure is par for the course when it comes to motherhood, I don't know whether to laugh or cry about that.

Reagan and Wilder finally sit still for a close-up. 

Another W&R pic 

Reagan's toys are FUN!! 

Wilder and his new buddy Reagan 

Wilder at Karen's house with Reagan's shoe. They were confiscating each other's stuff the whole time.  

Wilder is flanked by the Nalezinek girls' girls -- Leila, left, and Reagan, right, at the park. 

Wilder swings at a playground near Karen's house, and boy did he love it! 

Jerry and Wilder on first Father's Day 

Wilder and cousin Allie in the park near her house 

We land in Denver, and Wilder already seems excited 

Wilder and Pop on the shuttle to DFW for our bon voyage 

Handsome boy 

When Wilder's world and kitty's world collide 

Do my big blue eyes not beguile you into removing me from this horrible torture chamber you refer to as my "crib?" 

Another tragic suffocation of Rubber Ducky 

Into the Heart of Darkness

As the photo's that Kris has posted will attest today was our first family foray into the forest. (nice alliteration eh?) Kris woke up this morning with a mild to stormy case of the blues. On our morning walk, she and I discussed what we needed to do to make today a better day. After she discarded all of my sordid and leering suggestions we settled on a hike. Preferably a hike where we wouldn't encounter any idiots or pavement and where we could make believe we were back in the wilds of the Colorado way-up-high.

We settled on Cedar Hills State Park. Its fairly close, and comes close to meeting our two requirements. Now, bear in mind that this was to be the first time Kris and I had taken our offspring into the uncharted wilderness that is Cedar Hills State Park. Heretofore referred to as Itchy Cedar (hot-as-hell) Hills State Park. We packed everything we could think of; 2 backpacks, 3 bottles of water for the Wild-boy, water for us (not enough), diapers, wipes, plastic bags, strollers, blankets (big and small) my new GPS (the batteries, unbeknownst to me were practically dead), compass, telescope, bug spray, (forgot sunscreen...grrrr) and so on and so on. Those of you with kids are chuckling already. We know now, trust us we know.

and so this is how it went.

We arrived, chipper and rarin' to go. Then we got out of the car. I shit you not, the first thing I did was walk up to a nearby faucet and soak my head and hair completely. I am fuzzy on the details (from the heat) but I think I did that to put out the fire that the sun had kindled in my hair during the seven seconds I stood unprotected in its direct path. Then once Kris had finished changing Wilder, she wet her hair as well. Then we soaked Wilders whole poor little self. Then I rewet mine, as it had dried in the intervening four minutes. Did this little occurence, the fact that my hair DRIED in four minutes make any impact on my common sense you ask? I answer "why no". I can only assume my brain was pretty well reduced to mush and ash already, by the aforementioned fiery raging death orb in the sky.

We headed out into the dusty, gritty, dry, thornbush infested country side. We were slightly hampered due to the fact that the thorns averaged three inches in length. Kris made heroic (Heroine?) efforts to prevent Wilder from death or mutilations and that after fourty yards we were sweating through our clothes but like heatstroked lemmings we pushed on.

We did come across some startlingly beautiful stands of thistles and wildflowers. The bees were buzzing, the flies were flying and some pretty cool 'ladybugs' on steroids were spotted. Kris and I had a brief, uplifting conversation about Bobcats and their presence in the park. After a bit, (I really have no idea how much of a bit) we realized we had hit the bottomland of the area we were hiking in. Were it to rain, the are we were in would be inundated and likely a bit swampy. The long and the short of this bit of trivia is that the trail was washed out. Now I don't want to toot the collective K and J outback horn too much, but I will say this for reference. K and I have walked out of a Desert, in pitch dark, across desert slick rock. Over crevasse, along cliff faces and across a distance that it took us two days to make coming in in six hours going out, using only dead reckoning and my odd ability to directionally smell. Now we did that. However down in this dried up bog in a piss-ant little state park near Dallas Texas with our brains cooked by the heat and wilder looking like a broiled prawn we actually went in circles three times. I stopped, Kris stopped and we figured out what we would do.

"get the hell out of here." we both said. (not in unison, like in a movie. THAT would have been very cool. Buth thats not what happened.

and thats what we did.

we headed out, made it with only one minor heat stroke like cramp (on my part) Wilder suffered a scratch along his cheeck. (he claims the tree looked worse than he did.) and we made it to Joe Poole Lake, we sat there long enough to not feel like we had wasted the trip. (actually it was very nice. The lap of the waves, the cool breeze off the water, the call of the female Redneck Texan teaching its youngling to swim, "no flap yer arms Percy, flap em, flap em. Ok now , kick yer feets like a frog, yeah, like a frog. 'as's iyt! kick em, yeah, like a frog does. whoo hooo! look at him!")

then we went to Sonic, ate a couple of hamburgers and came home to brag to all our family and friends about how tough we are.

J&K with love.

Me & Wilder at Cedar Hill State Park. We decided we had to get the heck out of the city today and went on a hike (a short one -- it was 98 degrees), then relaxed by the water in the shade. GREAT day!! More pics below ... 

Papa & Wilder (note the scratch on Wilder's cheek, which he got on his first hike. Rite of passage and all that ...) 

Wilder and Mama