when ROTAVIRUS hits a large family...

Rotavirus = Horrid stomach pains that cause your children to cry out in pain, followed by gut wrenching vomiting...and just when you think it is over, then comes the explosive watery diarrhea.

(Sipping gatorade & watching Phineas and Ferb with a bucket close by)

In the last 48 hours we have change 4 beds of sheets, used every towel in the house & I have personally been vomited on 4 times (one of which was a 2am vomit shower by our sweet 2 year old who was climbing in our bed to tell me he wasn't feeling well).

(Our sweet little resting Wilson)

The stomach pains caused our littles (who got it first) to fuss & sleep; but the olders thrash about, moaning & groaning, crying out in pain, everything short of cursing the day the Rotavirus was born.

The vomiting is bad, really bad. So bad that we have given it the theme song: Let It Go, Let It Go! But what came next was just outrageously disgusting. Twilight diarrhea episodes by multiple children are what horror movies should be made of. Repeatedly cleaning up someone else's watery poop when all you want to do is sleep is physically & emotionally taxing. Like SERIOUSLY.

Normally I can handle our chaotic life without breaking down, but this sickness plague we have visiting our house right now has me at my breaking point. What is my breaking point? Well, this time it looked like a few tears shed in the shower & me asking Rich how & if I can quit my job. Then he nostalgically reminded me of our honeymoon when I had a similar illness of which HE had to clean up. That was TRUE LOVE. The details of those dreadful 2 days are too heinous to share. 

So what is my takeaway? Well, I'm not sure yet....it's not over. In the few short minutes it has taken to type this we've had 4 more vomiting episodes which dirtied the last of the clean (not soaked in vomit) towels. 

(Eddie has been doing a lot of this lately...)

Rotavirus 2014 Takeaway:

1) I can literally feel discouragement knocking at my mental/emotional door trying to persuade me to be overwhelmed with my life. I do not want to give into this. Last year's holiday season was miserable due to the end of very long/terrible pregnancy & birth of Mary-Lila (a wonderful occasion, but stressful none the less).

2) I am not a comforting person naturally, in fact I have to be intentional about being an empathetic comforting mother. I am more of a: "you are fine, shake it off" kind of mom. But when it comes to vomiting I am TOTALLY empathetic. The sounds, the stomach wrenching, the taste in the mouth...I totally relate (I have spent 4.5 years of my life excessively vomiting: 6 pregnancies X 9 months). And it just so happens that I am coming out of a horrid 3 week illness, so in a strange way God is using this sickness plague to build my comforting instinct.

3) Whenever sickness visits our family I a reminded of how blessed we are with health. I am so thankful for each day I get (however chaotic) with my children & husband. Each breath is a blessing from God.