BRAT

Nope, the title does not refer to how we all felt after 10+ days of being snowbound. Rather, it's the banana, rice, applesauce, toast diet recommended for upset stomachs. Anoher catch up post from snowmaggedon (still with no snow pictures! I'll get my act together soon.)

Yep. Snowbound, 30+ inches of snow, and stomach virus wound its way through the house. The night the first big snow started (Feb 5), Elizabeth woke in the middle of the night and threw up. We didn't think much of it, and the next day she seemed fine except for a few intestinal difficulties in the bathroom department. Nothing too serious, and no fever or anything. Sat night she was fine, Sunday warned neighbors who came over to watch the superbowl that she seemed to maybe have something, but everyone brushed it off and said it was probably just the three days of being cooped up and eating stashes of junk food (there had been plenty of neighborhood playdates and lots of cookie making and hot chocolate). And then Sunday night, middle of the night, and once again a huge mess in her bed. So, BRAT it was.

But after that, she was mostly fine. Last Monday night at dinner, Andrew had his own experience. He had eaten a big breakfast and lunch, but just picked at dinner. Suddenly, sitting in his chair, he turned to me, opened his mouth, and out gushed a firehose of dinner. You know that playdoh toy that pushes the playdoh out?


Yes, exactly that. I grabbd his head/shoulders and pushed him forward a bit so it would mostly go on the tray. Once dinner came out, he paused, took a breath, opened his mouth, and out came lunch. And once that stream ended, he paused, took a breath, opened his mouth, and out came breakfast. Yes. Perfectly stratified. Never seen anything like it. Hope to never again see anything like it, either. The sheer volume was one thing, but he had blueberries for breakfast so there were a few seconds of panic at the end that perhaps he was vomiting blood, but then we noticed an entire whole blueberry (he just stuffs them in his mouth, but still we thought he did some chewing!) and figured it out.

So, we all had a few days of the BRAT diet. We were able to get to the store on Tuesday and stock back up, which helped. And then Rich and I both felt queasy and a little stomach upset ourselves later in the week, but all told, it wasn't the worst virus we could have experienced while snowbound. Thank goodness no one had to visit a doctor, which would have been nearly impossible under the circumstances.

OK, that's enough of the too graphic posts! I'm gearing up to fight with blogger on pictures, so stay tuned. We just had a bulldozer (yes, a bulldozer!) come down our street to deal with piles of snow, so slowly things are getting back to normal.