Sick

I’m sitting in bed next to my very sick little boy. The smell of vomit wafts in the air. Loads of puke laundry are on a cycle upstairs, more standing by. The doors of my new Honda CRV are open wide to air out the stench of last night’s barf-o-rama. The car will never smell the same. 

Roan has the stomach flu (apparently) and a very high fever.

It makes me ill at ease because Roan is rarely, very rarely, ill at all. He’ll be six in August and he has never had an ear infection. Not one. Although I was the kind of mom who encouraged sand eating when he was a tiny boy (it builds the immune system!)

And he was in preschool and exposed to all sorts of things, he somehow convinced me he has this super immune system. He’d never get sick. Fevers are rare. Sore throats rarer and stomach problems rarer still. In fact the last time he threw up was after eating a whole box of star wars gummy candy. So you see he’s more of a glutton than an invalid. Here he is a couple years ago with his grandfather in full glutton joy.

But today he’s burning up, asleep, holding stuffed animals, a cool wash cloth on his head, slightly moaning. Already showered once to get the smell off of him, we’ve reached the point where you no longer care about that sort of thing. When he’s better we’ll clean him off properly.

It came on so suddenly. Yesterday we had sort of a marathon play day. He and his friends played for hours at a friend’s house. At one point Roan stole my iPhone to make a movie of them all in some production revolving around an old plastic easter egg called “The Egg of Destiny!”

Coloring, board game playing, running wild thru the lush Beverly Glen post rain trails, a playground, dogs, dinner at a diner and a trip with me to the mall.

And much like The Very Hungry Caterpillar much much food was eaten. Not good food.

In N Out Burger, A milkshake, Chicken “Fingers”, A Hot Dog, Frozen Yogurt, left over Easter candy, sandwiches, pretzels, juice, … and at one point at the diner Roan was licking jelly from the little foil jelly packets much to my chagrin.

I’ve just noticed he stole my i Phone once again during this jelly-imbibing as there is a whole home movie featuring the gluttony with my voice in the background telling my friend what I needed to buy at the mall.

Nonetheless it was a wonderful day and Roan seemed, as usual, the picture of health.

Until we were driving home and he said, “I feel car sick” - followed by copious amounts of barf. The kind you need a shovel to physically remove from your car.

As a child I was sick rather often. Since Roan is always so robust, this may sound crazy, I always sort of wished he’d have a “Sick day” where he’d stay home and we could cuddle and watch movies. But now… the gorgeous blue spring sky outside- we’re in bed and it’s not quite as fun as I’d imagined.

Still, I love my boy, stinky and barfy as he is. I’ll always be by his side.