When the bug bites

There’s no escape. You’d like to think when kids get sick there’ll be some respite, but parents everywhere know the incontrovertible truth: it ain’t gonna happen.

If you or your offspring haven’t been bitten yet, I’ll fill you in. There’s a flu out there and it’s as persistent as a mosquito on a hot summer night.

We had heard it was going around and you pray as a parent that somehow the dark angel will pass you and your children by, but it rarely happens.

Kids have an innate ability simply to look at one another and transference occurs. Germs communicate from one to the next as if through osmosis and then the fun begins.

I was laying in bed with our big boy late last week. We had finished storytime and he was clearly tired. His eyes were drooping and his face was slightly flushed, but I attributed that to fatigue. He crawled up onto my belly, saying he wanted to be close, and I should’ve known by the sound of that burp that vile things were imminent.

As we get older, adults get really good at anticipating the moment, but there are instances when the senses are dulled by the clamour of everyday life and we ignore the signs and symbols around us.

That tiny belch was merely a prelude, of course, and when he sat up and his stomach heaved, you might say that the floodgates opened.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had barf cascade into your ear, but I can say without hesitation that it’s not a great feeling. Even worse is the realization that your discomfort is slight compared to that of the child, whose face tells a tale of horror not at having spilled the beans on dear old dad but at having thrown up in the first place.

It’s terrifying vomiting, and I don’t think we ever get used to it. It’s nasty, messy, gut-wrenching and so persistent by times that you wonder how anyone could possibly have that much fluid in his body.

The discord mounts exponentially when little brother shares with big sister and she mimics his explosive behaviour. The sound of the washing machine going virtually night and day is not a happy one, I can tell you that much.

I like clean clothes and fresh bedsheets as much as the next guy, but when you’re sleeping on a pull-out cot and the kids are in bed with Mama because all other beds are sodden, you’ve reached critical max.

And while I was in working over the weekend and the kids were visiting Oma and Opa in Shubenacadie, the hits just kept on coming. In fact, they seemed well enough for the trip Saturday morning, but apparently not well enough to make it through Saturday night.

Both were up and hurling, so my wife had no sleep and I’m left here to rack my brain for a way to help so life can get back to normal.

Indeed, ‘normal’ is a relative term when it comes to kids and illness, and I suspect as life goes on there are no rules that govern it’s chimeric definition.

Sadly, when the bug bites, it’s like Blue Rodeo once said; we can only stumble from one disaster to another, and hope all are well sooner rather than later.