Tried and Failed

So despite being a total germ-a-phobe and making Carter take a shower and change clothes and santize his hands after school, we woke up early this morning to Carter being sick in the bathroom. He had closed the door and was trying to keep his illness a secret but as I told him "Moms have great ears and can hear everything." So I helped him back to bed and a few minutes later he was back in the bathroom puking all over. The poor kid kept saying he was sorry and as I helped him into new pajamas and was getting a towel for him to sleep with he went back into the bathroom where Matt was cleaning up and told Matt how sorry he was that he had made a mess and sorry that Matt had to clean it up. Poor sweet kid! I tucked Carter in and told Matt I had better call his mom when it got a little later because I'd need to cancel our plans of going to a baby shower. Carter heard me (turns out he has eagle ears) and started to cry because "he didn't want to disappoint grandma." I assured him that she wouldn't be disappointed and that everything was okay. He hasn't thrown up in several hours though he does still have some stomach illness. I have, of course, not allowed him in the same room as Katherine and he has plenty of fun things to do. He called down from his room to say that he is already on page 63 of his Indiana Jones book. He also has legos and star wars toys upstairs and he can play video games (just not the active ones much to his dismay) in the basement. He's not lethargic and no fever so I'm thankful for those things. He keeps sneaking down the stairs to look at Katherine and I have to shoo him back upstairs. He cried this morning because he wants to "play with baby buddy" so badly. I'm thankful that he loves her so much and while I am panicked about the illness I'm calmer than I thought I'd be. As a friend told me this morning it just shows that no matter how hard you try kids are going to get sick. He feels bad about it and wondered how he could get sick when he is being pretty good about sanitizing at school as well as at home but it only takes one bad germ on one stupid pencil or whatever and him then touching his mouth, eyes, nose, or breathing in someone's germs to get him sick. He did get a flu shot but it doesn't protect against all stomach bugs. So I tried to prevent him from getting sick again this winter (he had a horrible fever and cough in November) and I failed. I really hate failing.

As for any rumors we do not have a live pet parrot. Carter did get a funny furreals parrot for Christmas. It has a voice recorder so you can "teach" it words. In primary on Sunday Carter told his new teacher that his daddy teaches his pet parrot bad words. To dispel the rumor I need to tell you that believe it or not, it is really true that Matt doesn't use bad words. I can't say that I don't occasionally have a bad word slip out but I can say that Matt doesn't. He does talk gibberish when he gets mad and comes up with funny words that Carter thinks are bad words. He's convinced that when they are playing video games and Matt says Bowkey that it really is a bad word. And of course Matt "taught" the parrot to say "I am a bowkey." Carter thinks it's hysterical and I'm just waiting for a call from the school saying that Carter has been calling kids on the playground bowkeys and to please explain. Anyway, that's the "bad word" the parrot has been taught (and I taught it stupid, idiot, and the term for a wild donkey). I know, I'm a horrible example but it really makes me laugh. Ah, simple pleasures for simple minds.

I'm hoping that Carter makes a very speedy recovery. Could we be so lucky to have this be just a 24 hour bug? It's awful to admit but the first thing I did after getting Carter back to bed and all light switches, doorknobs, handles, remotes, phones, wiped down with clorox wipes was to get on the computer and double check if Carter has school on Monday. I hate when he misses school because the homework piles up and he's super sad to miss so I was happy to know that if he isn't better by Sunday 8am he will have another extra day to recoup. I'm a firm believer in the whole not going to school within 24 hours of being sick so I'm glad to have the extra day so that hopefully he'll be completely ready for school on Tuesday. I'm hoping he'll be well to get started on his science project tomorrow. He chose the topic water bouyancy and water's different states of matter (or whatever). Anyway it'll be a fun one so I'm excited for him! I'm going to have him choose a bunch of different stuff around the house and then fill a tub and let him hypothesize what will float and then test his theory. Then I'll let him take pictures of water in its different states. So yeah easy and fun!

Well, that's pretty much it since Katherine just woke up. :-)