Our Hero, Down, But Only Just

We arrived at KinderCare to collect the bambini, and saw that Joe had done his best today on the rainbow-clothes pin discipline chart.  Hooray!  But when we found Our Hero and began crowing over him, we were met with a sort of listless smile.  That's when Joe said his throat hurt and that he was thirsty.  Roh roh Raggy.  We found Clara and hustled home thinking it might be that he was overheated from the late afternoon outdoor play.  He's often flushed and sweaty at pick-up time in the summer.

But when we got home, Joe threw up on the porch, between the two doors. Poor Pal-o.  There is nothing quite so miserable looking as a kid who's just lost his cookies.  Clara went upstairs with Ted, and Julie took Joe in for a bath.  (Berenice was sent to the backyard at a forced march because as you all know, Fans, if there's something gross like vomit or pee or diarrhea to be licked up, Boo will be on it, like white on rice.)  After the bath, Joe climbed into bed where he ate a quarter of a piece of toast over the course of about three years.  Mostly, he manhandled it while trying to understand that he should eat only what he felt like eating, but that doing so, and being sick, did not give him leave to play with his food.

By now, we have decided (in our infinite medically sound wisdom) that Joe has--had--what Clara had on Friday evening.  This would be the Barfed-It-Up-and-I'm-Good-To-Go! bug.  Because although Joe wanted to lie down after taking a bath, soon enough he also wanted to play, and to know when his partner in crime was going to arrive.  He was jumpier than a Mexican jumping bean while snuggling with Julie as Ted gave Birdie a bath, and then with Ted when Julie was reading Birdie stories.  One got the sense that Joe felt being sick was a drag if it meant that he had to rest, and to be fair, he certainly seemed pretty revived.  Resting shmesting!

As this report is filed, the two of them are yucking it up in there.  The kitchen timer has just gone off and Clara is helpfully calling "It's ready!" from her crib.  (These back-up kitchen timers are fabulous.  It's a wonder we lived without them for so long.)