Barfing Birdie Rides Again

Birdie, between episodes

Ah spring.  April showers, May flowers.  Stomach bugs.  Birdie came down with one last night.  When we found her, shortly after hearing high-pitched and fevered whimpering not long after midnight, she'd heaved up a puddle of vomit in the bed and two puddles of it on the floor.  It was only after Julie had helped her into fresh pajamas that she realized one difference between a little girl losing her cookies and a little boy doing the same, is that you'll probably need to give the little girl a bath because the little girl will probably have longer hair and it will have vomit all matted up in it.  It might even be in her ears.  By the time Julie had bathed Clara and Ted had sopped up all the puddles of vomit and gotten the first of the laundry to come going, Joe was awake, too.  Clara wanted Julie to hold her, so Julie curled up next to Clara on her little bed, Joe across the way; Ted went back upstairs.  It wasn't long before Joe padded out, glancing backward the whole way.  Julie thought he was going to the bathroom, but she found out not long after that he'd headed upstairs.  Clara threw up again, but into a ready trash can.  She kept saying she wanted to go upstairs and after a while, Julie decided, screw it: she did, too.  So she scooped up Baby Bird and one of the big fleece blankets to serve as a barf barrier, if you will, and up they went.  So there were five in the bed: the boys, and the girls, including Berenice.  Berenice ended up on the floor.  Ted ended up on the chaise lounge.  Julie ended up with about a foot of bed by its edge; Joe and Clara split the difference that remained.  Clara woke up to vomit some more all night long.  Some of it went into a garbage can; some of it was caught by the barf barrier.  Bless her little Birdie heart.

Everyone made it through today on well less than a full tank of gas.  Ted stayed home with Birdie after dashing to Target before seven for his computer.  Before he left, she was doing donkey kicks in defiance of her fever and the hours of off and on vomiting that had just passed.  That's when she cut her bottom lip with her own teeth and started bleeding everywhere.

Ted biked to Target with Birdie in the trailer.  She fell asleep.  Once they got home, they went for a walk with Clara on her push bike.  After lunch, Birdie disappeared.  Ted found her upstairs in the big bed under the sheet that serves as the Berenice barrier (!--we are all about a body fluids barrier here at Raleigh House even as circumstances dictate a robust tolerance for body fluids).

No one puts Birdie in a little bed.

There she stayed.  Who could resist that face and all of Birdie's charms?  She threw up during her nap, of course.  BUT, she has been barf and fever free ever since!

We think we might be on an upswing.  We're going to need to rest up for it though!

Bonus outtake: "Show us your teeth!"