The Intruder

The first indication that we had an intruder came from Ms. D on Saturday morning. She gave a low moan then emptied her stomach standing in her crib. She didn’t cry, but she was scared, like any toddler who doesn’t have much experience with illness. My older two children cried hysterically whenever they vomited when they were her age. D seems to have a quiet acceptance of everything around her, whether pleasant or not. Even when she feels miserable she breaks into a smile.

I left D in the capable hands of her father, knowing that he would take loving care of her while M and I froze outside selling Girl Scout cookies. We had fun, we felt great (albeit frozen) and had no indication that the intruder had infiltrated our ranks further.

At about 2 a.m. the quiet of the night was broken when Miss M became the next victim of the infiltrator. By 2:30 it was evident that I too had fallen victim. K joined us by 5.

My husband, thankfully, stood strong against the enemy and watched the only intermittenly ill D while the rest of the family attempted to recuperate. It was obvious that K was not feeling well when he refused to leave his bedroom, took three naps unasked, and ceased talking. M was also quite obviously under the weather when she took two naps, one for which she voluntarily turned off the television.

M had holed up in the master bedroom with me but wanted to watch movies. I was reluctant to venture far from the bathroom as my stomach ailment was slightly different than the children’s (you’re welcome for sharing) so we asked Craig to bring a little TV/VCR combo up to the bedroom for us. He did much more than that and brought our big new flatscreen from the downstairs addition up to the bedroom. M happily (as happily as you can when you’re sick) watched cartoons and got to stay with me (which was what she really wanted) and I got to sleep even with the television in the room. Win-win…if there could be a situation like that in our circumstances. K joined us once and left in favor of his bedroom and sleep within 10 minutes but rejoined us later and stayed longer.

It was the beginning of the end. The intruder could be seen inching its fingers toward the white flag. And despite the sickness, it was a wonderful day because I had my family around me.