The Ralph McBarfersons

If I believed in jinxes, I would totally be kicking myself right now. Just a few weeks ago, I said to Ryan, "Do you realize how lucky we are that these kids have really only been sick a couple of times (one bad cold + roseola)??" Well. Then we caught The Plague. There is not enough Lysol in the world to get rid of all the grossness in our house now.

Reid threw up in the middle of the night Saturday night, then again Sunday morning, but he seemed fine after that so we didn't think much of it. Then I woke up feeling crummy on Monday and by that afternoon, I was in a world of hurt. I sent Ryan and the boys to my mom's, hoping to minimize their exposure, but we were too late. By Monday evening, Grant was throwing up and Ryan followed suit overnight. Reid started in again on Tuesday, and from that point on, it was relentless. But it was the weirdest thing: just when they would go all day without getting sick and we would start thinking they were on the mend, they would throw up in the middle of the night again.

I'm pretty sure we contaminated everyone who got within 50 feet of us last week: Honey, Big, Susan, Scarlett, Brett and Morgan all caught it as well. Sorry, family! 

I should confess that I am not at all proud of how much it stressed me out (and how much I cried). Between having two pitiful, fussy, puke-y babies, feeling like crap myself, and having to miss basically an entire week of work, the past week definitely rates as one of the hardest I've experienced in the past 10 months. Let me just put it this way: newborn twins were less stressful than this mess.

I really can not say enough how thankful I am that Ryan is such a wonderful, hands-on dad -- he missed just as much work as I did, and with each other's help, we both were able to make all our important meetings and meet our deadlines. I'm also exceedingly thankful for a job that is flexible enough to allow me to work from home when the boys were napping and after they were in bed, and for a boss who has two kids of her own and could not be more understanding or sympathetic. There were more than a couple of occasions over the past week when I cussed my career, but I do know how fortunate I am.

Anyway, sorry for being such a slacker in the blog department. To top it off, my work laptop died in the midst of the craziness and my photo editing software didn't make it onto my new one, so it could be a while before I post any new pictures. Don't give up on me -- I promise to be back ASAP!