First Birthday Part 2

During baby L’s first birthday, someone had (what seemed likely at the time) food poisoning a few days beforehand. They were getting over the bout and attended the birthday party. What we found out later was that it definitely was not food pointing - it was the stomach flu. The stomach flu was a birthday present that nobody asked for and unfortunately both L and my wife got sick from it.

For the better part of the week, I was trying to keep everything else running around the house. I was shuttling my 6 year old daughter E and 4 year old son C everywhere and we tried to stay separated from L and my wife as much as possible. When they started to feel a little better, they spent more time out of the room.

What a big mistake. Spending more time out of the room seemed to accelerate the spread of the stomach flu. After a few days, the rest of us got it and it was not a fun experience to go through. E, C, and myself were up all night in the middle of the week battling and creating a huge pile of laundry on top of what was already a huge pile of laundry. Luckily I bounced back after a day and E and C bounced back shortly afterwards.

The rest of the time was spent making sure my wife and L got better over time. Thankfully they did and things are relatively normal again after an up and down post-birthday period. This was definitely a birthday to remember and I’m sure L is happy that the bump in the road when he officially turned 1 is also past him as well.