Chicken Pox & the Stomach Flu

Day 1
Tuesday was just like any other day in our house. At 2pm I picked up the kids and was ready to go to Mitch's basketball game. I ended up being the only parent, besides the coach, to show up and drive kids. I left Emily to go home with her friend so that I could fit an extra player in my car. We all squeezed in, my kids and three extra, and headed to the game. I was following the coach and we went past the town the games are usually in and kept on driving. We were out in the middle of nowhere on the Indian reservation and I wondered if he really knew where we were going. Finally, after driving an hour we turn off on a little dirt road and find a little town with a little gym. The gym reminded me a little of my gym growing up as a kid. We had a smaller than normal basketball court, and this was much, much smaller. They had folding chairs around the gym and when you sat down your feet were on the court. The bottom hash mark on the free throw line was almost out of bounds and the free throw arcs almost touched each other. This was all fine and even a little funny until I took Amie in the bathroom to feed her. I just about lost it, their bathroom was so disgusting! I double washed all of my kids hands and made sure they didn't touch anything else in the bathroom or the gym. I was so glad to have long sleeves on to open all of the doors in our way. It was the most disgusting thing I had ever seen. Anyway....I sat back down and was running my fingers through Amie's hair and felt little bumps. Things weren't quite right. I started looking closer at her face and neck. What I had passed off as drool bumps from her pacifier now looked suspicious. Then I looked under her shirt and saw 3 little red marks. I about died! My little baby had chicken pox! Here I was with tons of little kids running around in a filthy gym, I had just had 3 boys in a car with me for an hour and they were all going to get chicken pox! I left and sat in my truck for the rest of the game. Mitch's coach is a doctor and checked out the bumps and said, "You know, these really don't look like chicken pox to me." Whew, I was so relieved. Then I got home and David was having scouts at our house and I got Amie ready for bed...more mysterious red bumps. I took her over to our neighbor's house who is a pediatrician(I was supposed to watch his kids the next morning and wanted him to diagnose Amie before they all came over and caught her sickness.) He looked at it and confirmed that it definitely looked like chicken pox. Ohhh, my poor little girl! I brought her home and gave her some ibuprofen to help relieve her fever then put her to bed.
That night David and I stayed up way too late watching a recorded 24. (I love that series!) I stayed up too late, but it was so much fun. As I fell asleep, I thought, I should check on Amie and make sure that she is ok. I didn't, and soon fell asleep. Steve woke me up a couple of hours later with a stomach ache. I put him back in bed, but soon he was back in my room crying. I sat with him in the living room and let him sleep on the couch. Before going back to bed, I checked on Amie and she was sleeping just fine. (I was paranoid the chicken pox would constrict her airway and she would suffocate.)It felt like just as my head hit the pillow, Steve was back in my room. I let him come into bed with me and he fell right to sleep. By this time it was 4:30am and I was wondering if I should just get up and go to the gym since I was already awake or just lay there and go back to sleep. I laid there listening to Steve snore until my alarm finally went off at 5am. I wanted to go back to sleep so badly, but new I wouldn't be able to sleep, so I got up and exercised. As I walked on the treadmill, I could just picture myself falling asleep and smashing down on the belt as it burned my sleeping face. I decided I was way too tired for that and went into a class. I felt much better, but new that a nap was going to have to come at some point during the day. Well, I got home from the gym and Emily was grossing out over the fact that she had just stepped in Steve's throw up. Ughh, I thought. What a great day this is going to be! Throughout the morning he threw up two more times, but was great after that. ( I don't know that he really had the stomach flu, he had just swallowed too much mucous and that was what he was throwing up.)

Day 2
The day did get better, I took a nap with Amie while Steve watched cartoons for a couple of hours. After my nap, I carried on as though life were normal. I had bought some blackberries while I was in Mesa and had to use them before they went bad. I made some yummy blackberry jam. Steve was a huge help in the kitchen! He kept up on my dishes for me. Was that blackberry jam I was making or toe jam?!David & I finished off the night with another episode of 24. The perfect ending to the perfect day!:)
Amie is looking worse every day. She is getting more spots and bigger ones too. I feel so bad for her. I hope she gets better soon and doesn't end up with a face full of pox scares! Get better, Amie!
Day 3 (this morning)
Ok, so I just got Amie out of her crib and her chicken pox got way worse! What is she going to look like tomorrow? The pictures will get smaller and smaller the uglier they get:( Poor girl!