Sunshine and Sick Days

See this beautiful tree?  Lawson loves this tree!  He talks about it every day and is just sure it's made of snow.  We've been watching it bloom over the last week or so as the beautiful Mississippi winter weather continues on.

Unfortunately, we've been watching it through the window.

Because sickness has struck again.  Just when I thought we were all on the mend, we all started feeling sinus pressure.  Then Lawson got a fever a few nights ago and Naomi was acting a little strangely this morning... but I brushed that off.  I gave Lawson some fever reducer, loaded us all up in the Expedition and we headed out to run a few errands this morning.  A minute before parking at the first stop, Naomi started to cry.  Good thing we're almost there, I thought.  Or not.  I stopped the car, got out, opened the door and reached in to unbuckle my.... throw up   covered   child.  Seriously, covered.  And all over her brand new, beautiful, ruffly tissue tee.  I mean, my poor, poor child!  Priorities, people!  Geeze.  In actuality, she seemed fairly happy, but was sporting a nasty layer of the remnants of the apple, nuts and dried cranberries she'd just been munching on and was quite preoccupied with the mess of the situation.  She just kept repeating it over and over to me as I cleaned her up.  "Mess.  Mess.  Mess."  It was pretty pitiful and so on par with the mantra in my own head!  Thankfully, I keep the car stocked with paper towels and wipes, so I cleaned her up as well as I could, stripped her down to her undershirt and stuck her in the cart.  Yep, we were still going in. We were all the way to town and we were not going back quite yet.  I needed to buy Cliff bars in bulk.  Needed to.  Again, priorities.  Now, before you pass me off as irresponsible for taking two sick kids into public and spreading their germs all over the place, bear in mind, I used a shopping cart cover.  I also thought I only had one mildly sick child when I went.  See?  A totally responsible move on my part. We were already there in the parking lot and going back home Cliff bar-less (especially when I was able to clean her up to the point of looking like she had just spit a bite of food out on the top of her shirt) wasn't much of an option.  It seemed like a good idea to just run in really, really quick.

Until we got inside the store and Lawson announced to the first two people we passed, "Num num just throwed up and my penis really hurts."  He's obviously still reeling from the penis squishing incident and I have never made such a surely awkward transition from friendly smiling stranger to head-down-do-not-look-at-me-I'm-not-here-freak-girl with the bright red face.  Holy cow.  I can't even imagine what those people were thinking! It was a bad idea to "just run in really, really quick", after all.  I grabbed my boxes of Cliff bars and  r a n  out of that store.  Well, I paid.  And I gave Lawson the evil eye and a quick "Shhh!" every time someone got near us, but, then I ran out of there before he could inform another unsuspecting stranger of all things personal and embarrassing.  We then holed up in the house for the rest of the day.

I am exhausted from dismembering, scrubbing and then putting the Britax back together again.  I just installed Quincy's carseat on Monday and had a brief few days of satisfaction knowing I need not remove or install a carseat for at least another year.  Ha!  Luckily, I know Naomi's carseat well and the install process was fairly quick, given my girth and overall breathlessness.  I seem to have gotten most of the cranberry colored stain out of her new shirt, which pleases me to no end and I am now crossing my fingers, toes and legs in hopes that no one else gets the up-chucks.  Well, not my legs, actually.  They don't cross anymore as Quincy seems as overzealous in her preparation for D-day as I am and has left me walking like I just rode bareback down a bumpy country road.  Oh, that itch on my thigh?  No worries, Quincy will scratch it.  Yeah, it's THAT comfortable.

So, all of this has left us all tired, sicky and stuck inside watching movies and blowing bubbles.  Inside, where nary a human can walk by and hear about our squished penis and vomit issues... not so bad of a deal, perhaps.