One Perfect Moment {In sickness & health} | Life
One Perfect Moment is all about those moments, big or small, that make you wish they'd last forever. Those moments you want to stop in time, when everything feels perfect, even for just a split-second. Snapshots of the mind. Moments to treasure forever.
This weekend just gone was epic. And I don't mean epic the way I used to, when I was young and child-free and would be out all weekend, barely sleeping, having adventures.
It was epic in a way that only those who have endured a full-family gastro bout can appreciate.
The warning signs were there on Thursday. Zee woke up from her nap, crying and covered in vomit. It was everywhere. The kind of episode that only a shower and a good wash can make right. I stripped off the poor girl and jumped in the shower with her while Dave set about cleaning up her bed.
We hoped that it was a one-off. I'd caught Zee drinking the last of the milk from her sippy cup that she had had that morning. How she manages to hide those bottles and then find them hours later when even I can't is beyond me. I was confident that this sour milk must have been the culprit.
By Friday night I knew it was not.
I was sitting at my desk, working on some Tafe stuff when Punky walked over. She put her head on my arm and told me she didn't feel very well. Two seconds later I barely managed to avoid her vomit hitting the computer. I sacrificed myself instead.
Poor Punky then spent the next 6 hours vomiting. It was horrible. The poor thing. She lay on the lounge with us, staring glassy-eyed at the TV. Only moving to reposition herself or reach for the v-bowl.
After a little bit of bed shuffling we got Zee in to our bed and made Punky up a bed on the spare mattress in her room, so that Dave could sleep in Zee's bed beside her, to help her if she needed to be sick again.
By 3am Dave was up and making very frequent trips to the bathroom. At 7am I was feeling those first tell-tale stomach cramps. By 10am it was confirmed. Gastro. And none of us were spared. I went back to bed for an hour while Dave lay on the lounge with the girls. At 11am we switched places.
For the next couple of hours the girls and I lay in the lounge room napping and watching back to back episodes of Doc McStuffins. What I wouldn't have done for a real-life Doc right then.
At 2pm Dave got up and we switched places again. He told me he was going to have a quick shower and could I keep an ear out for the girls if they got up. In my haze of sweating and stomach cramps I heard Zee start to cry, but then I heard Dave's voice talking to her so I knew he had the situation in hand. When I got up myself a couple of hours later it was to discover that poor Zee had succumbed yet again and been vomiting herself.
By 6pm both girls were on the mend, but still not back to their usual, loud, energetic selves. Dave and I were decidedly under the weather. At 7pm we were all on the lounge together, Punky laying between Dave and I, Zee curled up on my lap. We were a family of sickness.
At least in our sickness we were together. It was hard. Trying to look after the girls and make sure they were ok, in between trying to get to the bathroom quick enough ourselves. Making sure we were all hydrated and managing to eat a few mouthfuls of Vegemite on toast.
But as we sat on the lounge together watching the Night Garden, the girls between us, I knew that even in sickness I wouldn't trade what we have together for anything.
I saw how kind Punky was to us all, when she could see that we weren't well. She knew how we were feeling, and was liberal with her hugs and kisses, stroking Zee's head, giving me 'little tickles' on my hand, passing Daddy his glass of water when he needed it.
A full-family bout of gastro is not something I want to experience again, but I'm pretty sure this won't be our last time. At least I know now that we can handle it. And that even in sickness or health, there are still perfect little moments of time to be found. Even if they do include having a head over a bucket!
Have you experienced the full-family gastro bout? How did you get through it?
Linking up with The Multitasking Mummy & One Mother Hen
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