The Glass is Half Full

Tom had a great weekend at a men's retreat with the guys from church.  I had plans for a special Saturday with the kids to keep their mind off the fact that Daddy was gone for more than one whole day.

Saturday morning I made waffles (since Lukas prefers waffles and Tom prefers pancakes), bacon and eggs.  The minute I said, "Ok, let's sit down to eat," Lukas said he didn't feel well and was going to lie on his bed.  Natalie, Konrad and I ate breakfast, with me up to respond to Lukas' moaning and groaning that his stomach didn't feel well.

I was planning to spend the morning at a special park with the kids, but with Lukas horizontal, that wasn't going to happen.  About an hour later I asked Lukas if he'd like a banana, and he agreed.  Thirty minutes later, he threw that up.  I have him a sip of water to get rid of the bad taste.  Ten minutes later he threw that up.

Ok, this is going to be THAT kind of day!

Lukas spent the whole day lying down, throwing up any small amount of water that I gave him to drink, with a fever of 100 degrees.  The only thing he kept down was Tylenol (since I refused to give him water after giving him the Tylenol).  Finally at 5 p.m. he kept a few mouthfuls of water down.  So at 6 p.m. I gave him a piece of toast, of which he consumed two small bites.  Ten minutes later... you guessed it.

Tom came home right before the kids went to bed, to their great joy.  When we went to bed, I gave Lukas another dose of Tylenol and he had 10 ml of Gatorade.  Ten minutes later, that came up.

I woke at 1 a.m. this morning and he felt hot, so I gave him some Tylenol without anything else and he kept it down.

This morning he said he felt much better, so we gave him a glass of Gatorade and a very small bowl of oatmeal.  Thirty minutes later, he didn't feel well again, but he hasn't thrown up today!

He's definitely feeling better today, but says, "I won't be able to eat any food for several days."  Yeah, right!  I told him he doesn't have to eat anything, but he does have to drink liquids.

My observations on this first sickness (by a child in our family) of the fall season:

• Praise God that Lukas didn't eat breakfast that morning...he basically just threw up water all day.
  
• It is soooo much easier to take care of a kid who is throwing up when they can put it in a pan themselves.  All the other times I've had kids who are throwing up, it involved washing a ton of laundry and giving a bath every hour.  This was not even difficult BECAUSE I wasn't cleaning up messes, changing sheets, trying to keep from throwing up myself at the smell.  All I did was rinse out the pan and give it back to him!
• It's a blessing to not have a chronically ill child.  While Lukas was moaning about how miserable he was, I told him we can thank God that he will recover from this sickness...some kids are sick like this every day.
• Today Lukas is much better, but I'm still staying home from church with him.

The glass is more than half full.