To Puke, Or Not To Puke -- that is the question

So, we have this "tradition" in our household of someone always getting sick over the holidays; generally speaking it turns out to be either the Thanksgiving or Christmas holiday. It is a fairly odd phenomenon, considering the fact that we are rarely ever sick.

Our "tradition" has sent any and all of us (depending on the year!) scrambling for the nearest receptacle to throw up in as well as to the Emergency Room (that was my husband) in the wee hours of the night/morning for a 5+ hour stay. Last year we managed to stay healthy throughout the holidays and thought for sure we had finally broken the streak...but alas, here comes today...2 days before we are set to leave to see family, and BOOM.

"Little Man" crawled into our bed at some point during the night and decided to make himself comfortable. I barely noticed until 3:56 a.m. when I felt a sudden movement in the bed, the arching forward of a small body, and then THAT sound. Oh Lord -- please no!

I proceeded to do the only thing a good mom would, place my hands directly underneath my son's mouth in a futile effort to help him and to also "save" the comforter that he was about to throw up on. Then it came...there was no stopping it. The fact that I offered up my hands to him made not one bit of a difference -- it were as if I thought that would somehow "delay" the inevitable!

I shouted for my husband to grab something, anything, for "Little Man" to throw up in. By the time he returned my hands were of no use, there was just too much. My nice, new comforter was now splashed with sour spit up. I couldn't stand the smell and started gagging myself (way to go mom!) so dad had to step in and take over the clean-up duties. I, in turn, headed straight for the bathroom to immediately soak my hands in the strongest anti-batcterial soap I could find. I'm pretty sure I would have used bleach had it been available! Ha!

At any rate, there then proceeded to be a lot of stripping going on -- my clothes came off, then the boys, then all of the bedding. We started doing laundry at, oh, about 4:20'something before remaking the bed in an effort to catch a few more winks before awaking for work at 5:30. It didn't work all that well, I was too worried about making sure that the next "episode" did indeed make the receptacle.

So...an extended weekend was in order and my husband and I decided to split the duties of staying at home with the kids so that we could each manage to get into work for at least a 1/2 day. "Little Man" did finally quit throwing up and we intend, barring any additional incidents, to send both of the kids back to school and daycare tomorrow. I'm hoping this is simply a 24-hour thing and that we will be back on track to being "sick-free" over the holidays for a second year in a row. We have less than 24 hours before we leave...I know we can do this!! Right? We can do this? :)