The stomach bug just tore through our home.

That makes it sound like a speedy, whirlwind of a time. It may have been a whirlwind of bodily fluids, but it was more of a meandering pace.

Over a week ago, RB got sick in the car. It had been a long ride: thirty minutes to the trampoline park in Plymouth.

I thought, ‘maybe car sick?’ Although she’s never been carsick in her life.

We leave BB to jump her heart out and I drive thirty minutes straight back home. I put RB in the tub and down for a nap. An hour later she throws up in the crib, wipes her face with her lovey, rolls over and goes back to sleep.

NEXT LEVEL GROSS. But considering I was already going to have to wash everything, why rush in there if she wasn’t asking for me?

An hour later she’s awake and I’ve got her back in the tub. She’s dry heaving in the tub. I get her in front of the TV with towels covering every surface around her.

She refuses any sort of vomit receptacle and will only let it come out wherever it may.

By bedtime she’s done throwing up and sleeps straight through the night. The next day she is her happy, energetic self. Everyone else in the family feels fine.

Seems like it might be a fluke. The next day RB is worse again. Her dinner from the night before returns. She spends the rest of the day in front of the TV and never throws up again.

That night Captain and I eat a hearty dinner. A couple hours later it is clear that that was a mistake. We spend the night separately. Each of us with our own toilet.

Twenty-four hours later we’re on the mend. Forty-eight hours later we’re at a party drinking beers, eating tacos and realizing maybe we’re not as well as we had hoped.

We return home and I ask BB, as I’ve been asking for a week,

“How are you feeling?”

“Good!”

Two hours later, not so good. BB spent the rest of the weekend cradling a trash can. Monday morning she felt all better. I kept her home from school just in case. Tuesday morning I sent her on her way.

Hours later the nurse calls. BB was sick at school. I am beyond sorry about that, to her and to anyone nearby.

Wednesday, yesterday, she spent the day a free woman. No school, no vomit and no mom.

There are real perks to Captain working from home.

Today is the first day everything seems to be back to normal. RB declares,

“I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

“WHAT?!”

“I need TV.”