We Definitely Need More Pork

Yeah, that super New Year's Day dinner that was supposed to guarantee us health, wealth, and happiness? Should have eaten it earlier, because half the family was too sick to even sit at the table.

A. started failing early in the day, and by dinner time he was just sitting on the floor in front of the woodstove, hunched with a fever and trying to get warm. Cubby came to the table, sat there for a second, and then announced he wasn't feeling good and left to join A. on the floor. Charlie took about four bites of rice, gulped his milk, and raced off to bedevil the two ill family members.

Jack had been screaming for at least an hour by the time we sat down to eat--thanks to two more teeth trying to come through--and managed to sit for about five minutes at the table before he was wailing again.

So I ate my dinner in about twenty seconds and then went into the living room to let Jack and Charlie crawl and leap all over me on the floor. A good wrestling session always cheers them up.

Cubby appeared in the living room a few minutes later to tell me his stomach was really not feeling well. I asked him if he felt like he might throw up. No, he said. It doesn't feel like that, he said.

Uh huh. 

I sent him to the kitchen to ask the MiL for a bowl. Two minutes later he reappeared, the MiL following and holding the bowl that he had just gotten in his hand before vomiting up the entire contents of his stomach.

And about two minutes after that, A. shuffled through the living room with a bowl of his own and the wan announcement that only bed could save him.

By 6:45 p.m., every member of the household except for me and the MiL was in bed. 

We're really starting 2016 with a bang. And a vomit bowl.