Krank

"Mom? Mom! Mommy!"

"Alex?"

"Joey threw up and he's scared!"

And, at 4:00 in the morning, indeed he did, and he was.  He looked at me, bewildered, surrounded by the mess, and sobbed "My little bed is ruined!" (He may share his sister's melodramatic streak.) Now that his little brother was being tended, Alex's concern shifted to interest: he sat, with his chin propped up on his hands, watching to see how this all would unfold.

This all should have been no great surprise, I suppose: Joey had gotten sick all over the carpet last night, but from what he described, Dennis and I had thought it was because he'd gotten some popcorn stuck in his throat.  But no: it turns out Joey really does have some sort of bug.  I sent the healthy brother to my warm place in bed, so that he'd have a chance of staying conscious in school later in the day, and I set about cleaning up Joey and his little bed.

When I finally had him tucked in up to his chin again, I tried to explain the mechanics of the spit-up bucket to Joey, which he regarded with disgust: "I don't need a bucket! I don't want it!"  He was really digging his heels in, and I decided it was more important to have Joey sleep, so I let him live dangerously.

But there I was, at 4:30, wide awake.  I made myself a cup of tea and looked around for a book to help me sleep, and finally came across an electronic copy of Wuthering Heights, which I haven't read since high school, when it helped me sleep quite nicely.  But now, at thirty-three, it turned out to be an extremely poor choice: at 5:30 I was still riveted and had to make myself go to sleep the old-fashioned way, by closing my eyes and laying still.  When I reopened them a minute later, it was 7:00, and time to get the big kids to school.

Joey woke up looking completely refreshed, however: he was a completely new kid.  So I decided to push ahead with our day's plan, to join escort Karen and Kevin to Google and join them for breakfast and a campus tour.  Joey ate his croissants with great enthusiasm, and then, when we were finished in the cafeteria, he cheerfully ran his little legs off, keeping up with the adults as we toured all six stories of the building, laughing with excitement whenever he found something especially cool, which was just about constantly: the relaxation room, with a wall lined with fish tanks; the enormous bucket of gummy candies, free for the taking, in the game room; the jungle-themed meeting room, where he could ferret out all the little animal statues that were hiding in and around the potted plants; and, of course, there were all those fun public work stations to play in, the ones fashioned out of a hot air balloon basket or a ski lift gondola or an arctic exploration pod. He crawled around and got his germs on all of them, I'm afraid.

Because, apparently, germs he still had. After we were done playing, Joey and I dropped Kevin and Karen at the train station, sending them off for a few days in Barcelona (and a few nights of uninterrupted sleep).  And Joey immediately dropped into a nap, leaving me with to quietly enjoy the autumn scenery as we strolled home.

He slept through our return home, through lunch time with the kids, and then finally reawoke, only to climb into his bed.  I fished his now-warm and clean sheets and comforter out of the laundry and tucked my smiling boy in, but a few minutes later, I heard a panicked voice call from his room: "Mom! I need that bucket!"

Making lemons out of lemonade: Thanks to Joey, I have a
carpet to clean, but that means we now have all kinds of space for a
poorly kid to lay out trains  and building blocks.

Sure. Now you want a bucket, Joey. But I was too slow, and back into the laundry went the sheets and comforter.  But Joey didn't need them anymore, anyway: he was, puzzlingly, right back to his peppy self after that, and he was pretty cheerful for the rest of the afternoon, especially since I often give sick kids heavy doses of television.

Although Joey was sick, Ella was the one who had to go to the doctor today, to get her finger treated once again. I found it curious that, although the doctor spoke English to Ella, she only spoke German with him.  I think it might be because he's a little intimidating: for her, it's a language of respect. But respect paid off: he sent her home with an enormous chocolate bar, far bigger than anything she picked up on Halloween.

Television, candy...poor, healthy Alex is missing out!