Nothing drives up Scott's anxiety like a good stomach bug. He shifts between paranoia that he will catch it and start throwing up himself (something he does not handle well) and the fear that someone will throw up on furniture or carpet. With that being said, let me tell you the story of our first night in our new house.
After closing on our house there were a few projects we had to get done before moving in. The last step was getting new carpet installed throughout the house. As soon as that was complete the movers delivered all our stuff and we got all of the big furniture in place. We hadn't unpacked any boxes yet and weren't planning on spending the night yet, but the kids begged and begged to sleep in their new beds so we figured, why not, and stayed for the night with next to nothing available to us. After tucking all the kids in bed Scott and I walked around the house admiring the new carpet and Scott said, "The first kid who throws up on this carpet is out of the family." We got a good laugh about it and went to bed. In the wee hours of the morning we woke up to little footsteps coming down the hall and Brynn's voice in the doorway saying, "Mom....my tummy hurts...." followed by a gagging noise. I have never seen Scott move as fast as he did as he bolted out of bed, across the room, and spun Brynn around just as she started vomiting uncontrollably all over the hall floor. Thank goodness the hall has laminate flooring which conveniently still had large pieces of cardboard taped down on it from the movers. I was super disoriented and couldn't figure out what I needed to do in this foreign place without as much as a washcloth available to help me clean up. As Scott started rummaging through moving boxes to find towels I took Brynn into the bathroom to shower off. I turned on water and waited...and waited....and waited for it to warm up, but it never did. Scott abandoned the towel hunt to go down to check out the water heater and low and behold the pilot light was out and would not relight. Perfect. I got Brynn cleaned up the best I could in cold water and then she and I went to camp out the rest of the night in the main room, far away from the precious new carpet. Scott located the boxes of towels proceded to cover every square inch of carpet in the boys' room just in case one of them woke up sick, which thankfully they didn't. In the morning we packed up all the kids and drove back to my parents' house to get Brynn cleaned up and figure out what was going on with the Gas at our house. Turns out when we called and transferred the service to our name they had accidentally shut off the service instead. What a memorable night.
Since that day, Scott has implemented some new protocols in our house for when anyone gets sick. I'm pretty sure it has been more ingrained in our kids what to do if they ever wake up sick at night then what to do in case of a fire or earthquake.
When anyone does get sick they are confined to "the sick bed" which is a bed Scott sets up on the laminate floor in the living room. If needed, additional sick beds can be added to create an infirmary for the sick. From there they have quick and easy access to the bathroom without any carpet or upholstery in their path. Every person in the house is equipped with a pink bucket by their bed and the carpet around everyone's beds is lined with towels. This procedure is followed until every night until several days have passed with no incidents.
I am happy to report that by following this protocol we have made it an entire year without cleaning vomit out of carpet. Crossing our fingers we can make it a few more.
