Read at your own risk

Summer vacation is here and we are off to, in my mother's words, a viral start.  Yikes.  Yes, another stomach bug.  I know that you have heard about many the scourge over the years on this blog; but this, this one, folks, is the worst yet.  So violent is it that I brought Hannah to the ER after 9 hours of throwing up every 15 minutes for a dose of Zofran, the wonder drug.  Truthfully, I was convinced that she was suffering from food poisoning occasioned by an odd-tasting carton of chocolate milk purchased in Renfrew.  I mean, c'mon, a stomach flu in the last week of school?  A stomach flu when no one else in town is sick?  (Or so I thought.)  Hannah made her way through the throes of illness and seems to be emerging on this her fourth day.  And, in the interest of TMI, this is a both-ends sort of illness.  People are wearing Pull-Ups who haven't worn Pull-Ups in years.  'Nough said.

Joe entered the battle yesterday morning at 9:30 and is still moaning 24 hours later.  Thankfully Angry Birds on the iPad is proving a distraction.  Isaac joined in last night at 7pm, aiming carefully for the handmade quilt on the couch.  Jacob issued a blood-curdling scream at 9pm and has been back and forth between two buckets in the front room.  I found Sarah happy and extremely smelly at 5:30 this morning.  Funny how babies can happily sleep in vomit.  Praise God for small mercies.  Speaking of mercy:  we haven't been spared the depths of this virus; however, Dave's class was over for a bbq on the second last day of school at which they had an enormous water fight. With buckets.  Yes, buckets!  Buckets that they left here at our house.  Four buckets that we didn't have before.  Four providential buckets.  Buckets from heaven.  You get where I'm going with this?  Enough buckets for everyone...

Dave is currently asleep on a mattress on the living room floor as he took the night shift with the three boys.  I am still feeling well and praying (desperately) not to fall ill.  Please, please, spare me!  Spare Dave!  Ben is still up and running and hasn't fallen ill once this year.  The only thing that I can chalk this up to is that Ben is the only one of the older kids who doesn't bite his nails.  He is also extremely obedient when it comes to precautionary measures.  In fact, yesterday I told the kids who were still well that they should drink a lot of water so that we could prevent dehydration.  (Who knows if this makes any sense.)  Anyway, Ben has been drinking steadily for 24 hours.  He also seems to believe that cucumbers with their high water content can act as an effective prophylactic.  I also heard him pray, "Dear Jesus, I pray that my white blood cells win this battle."  Specific prayer, my friends, wins the battle.

So, there you go, blog readers.  Way too much information.  And no pictures.  Say a prayer for us.  And whatever you do, please don't say, "You guys are always sick."  That, my friends, would be unwise.