Five on Friday: A Yucky Few Weeks

Whew. I don’t have a normal Five on Friday post for you all this week because honestly, it was just a rough one. Our house has been rocked with illness the last month and we are all pretty worn out. Caleb has been sick at least 1-2 times a month for his entire life, so we’re used to that, but a month ago he got his first stomach bug and it is a whole different ballgame. His few days of throwing up and yuckiness quickly passed on to me and Jordan and we were both knocked out with 24 hours of throwing up, achiness, and just general misery (can you tell I hate anything stomach related?).

Then, just two weeks after we’d healed from that, Caleb was hit with stomach bug round 2! He threw up on and off for several days and it seemed like we spent all our time cleaning it up – out of the carseat, his glider, the carpet, our clothes, just EVERYWHERE. Because apparently little babies don’t know when they’re going to throw up and it just happens spontaneously, leading to lots of yuckiness for mom and dad.

All the furniture in our house has been covered with blankets for several weeks now…

This was maybe the sickest I’ve ever seen Caleb and it was so, so pitiful. He slept almost the entire day, alternating between nursing, crying, throwing up, snuggling, and falling asleep on me because he could barely keep his eyes open. He is usually my independent, non-snuggly little explorer so even though my heart broke for him, I sure did love having him snuggle up on my chest.

He finally started to feel better over the weekend (even though he surprised us with a few random and delightful vomit and poop blowout incidences as he healed – like the worst one in his carseat on the way to the park). But as soon as he got better, I caught the stomach bug AGAIN. I was up all Tuesday night getting sick and could barely keep it together on Wednesday. Thank goodness for family in town because I dropped Caleb off at my sister-in-law’s for the day. I was so grateful for her because without a needy little one around I could actually rest and it was much needed. I’m feeling a bit better now and we’re praying that Jordan doesn’t get it before a weekend full of fun plans to celebrate a friend’s bachelor party.

The last few weeks have been so hard for lots of reasons. First and foremost, it’s no fun to have a poor, sick kiddo. It breaks my heart to see him hurting and it’s also rough to constantly be smelling and cleaning up all sorts of yucky bodily fluids. Second, it just feels so isolating. Getting out of the house is what keeps me sane as a stay-at-home mom and we’ve had to cancel every single get-together we made with friends the last few weeks because Caleb was sick or one of us was sick.

I know that this is just the reality of this season and baby’s developing immune system, but man, this sickness is starting to wear on me. I’m grateful that none of the sicknesses are serious and it’s just a lot of viruses, but it’s still tough to feel like as soon as we catch up and get back to sleeping/eating/being normal after one round of sickness the next one smacks us in the face.

Parenthood is full of so much joy and I love getting to share those sweet moments with all of you on this blog. But real talk, y’all…sometimes parenting is just a whole lot of throw-up and poop. Here’s hoping the next few weeks bring time with friends, sunny days outside, lots of sleep and NO. MORE. SICKNESS.