Texas Makes Us Sick

"Our Infamous IHOP Experience"

I have been debating for quite awhile whether or not to write about this little piece of history from our summer. I finally decided that illness has been a great part of our experience here in Texas and that perhaps one day I will look back on this and laugh. Also, I am keeping it real here folks! Warning: Not for the faint of heart or stomach for that matter. Serious potty talk to come, do not proceed if you have a weak stomach!

A little history before I get to the main point of my post: Texas is making us sick, literally sick. Until moving to Dallas, our family has always been pretty healthy. We have never been one of those "sick families". You know the type that seems to catch everything that is going around if even through osmosis. Their kids constantly have green boogers, lingering coughs, etc. You know what I mean.

All five of us officially have allergies now and are on medication at different times of the year to try to control our symptoms. Poor Kaden has had the worst time of it. After several serious reoccurring ear infections he finally had tubes put in his ears and his adnoids removed the end of May. He seems to be doing better, but is still on two medications for his allergies and often sounds like he is talking through his nose.

This brings me to the photos posted above and the real meat of my post. Kevin had the opportunity to travel to Lodi, CA in July for the blessing of our new niece Caymen. It was more or less a Parker reunion as all of this siblings would be in attendance. Due to Kevin's demanding schedule in his residency, he was only able to take one day off and arranged his visit around a three-day weekend. We decided that for such a short visit, it wouldn't be prudent financially or sanity-wise to take all of the kids on such a short trip. So it was decided that I would stay home with the kiddos. Kevin made a deal with the kids that if they were good while he was gone, and if they all had an "A" grade when he returned, that the would take the entire family out to dinner.

The night Kevin left (of course) our kids came down with a serious GI bug. I was up all night cleaning up bedding, giving baths to, and trying to comfort little ones who were completely miserable. Lauren and Ava seemed to be the worst, and I actually had to put Lauren back in diapers...poor girl. How degrading after being potty trained to return to diapers. We basically quarantined ourselves in our home and watched movies and ran back and forth to the bathroom while sipping Pedialite and Gaterade.

Rewind a few weeks prior to this time to swimming lessons held a certain pool which will remain nameless, but begins with a "Y" and ends with an "A". During the course of our six-week lessons, our pool had been closed twice because of a "chemical imbalance". Once the pool reopened, I pressed for more info and learned that several life guards and swimmers had been sick with "Crypto-like" symptoms to include serious GI trouble and vomiting. We returned to the pool for one lesson and then the pool was closed the next day for the third time. This was about the time that our kids got sick. Hmmmm.....could we have gotten this nasty bug from the germ-infested swimming pool where we were hoping that they would be learning life-saving swimming skills?

Kevin made it home late Monday night from his fabulous weekend of frolicking carefree with his family to find us all in pretty rough shape. (Seriously, I am glad that he was able to go. He works so hard and certainly deserved a break.) Miraculously, I hadn't caught the bug yet (that was to come later). Tuesday late afternoon I took the kids to the the doctor because I was concerned that Lauren wasn't able to keep anything down. She literally had it coming out of both ends. Kevin met us there after work. The nurse practitioner really wasn't very helpful and told us to watch for dehydration.

This is when Kevin had his brilliant idea. He wanted to take us out to eat because the kids met his grading criteria while he was out of town. I was seriously skeptical knowing how they were all feeling. Kaden was on the mend, but I was concerned about the little girls. However, Kevin talked me into it saying that we had to eat anyway and off we went to IHOP. See photos above.

We had only been seated for a couple of mins. when I heard a giant explosion next to me. I looked over at Lauren to see that the contents of her diaper were seeping over and spilling into the plastic toddler booster chair in which she was seated. Panicking, my mind raced about which option made the most sense at this point. Should we try to clean her up, or simply cut our losses and run out the back door as quickly as we could? Kevin, bless him, picked the entire booster seat up with Lauren inside it and carried her into the restaurant's bathroom for a quick clean-up. Luckily, I had an extra outfit for her and plenty of diapers.

When Kevin and Lauren returned to our table, our food had arrived. We began to start eating when I heard the second explosion, this time to my left and slightly fainter. Ava was the guilty culprit. I promptly sent Kevin to the washroom with her and a clean diaper and wipes. By this time, I was seriously ready to call a spade a spade, cut our losses, and head home. "Let's just hurry and eat," said Kevin convincingly.

We began shoveling food into our mouths as quickly as we could, when all of a sudden Lauren started to whimper and then completely vomited all over her plate of food. Trying to remain composed, I discretely tried to clean up as best as I could.

That was when our waitress came by and asked how we were doing. Smiling through gritted teeth I replied, "Fine thanks." To which Kaden immediately responded, "No we're not. We've got a little girl here who just threw up all over the place." Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it....our food server had moved on to her next table by this time and didn't hear his brutaly honest reply. At least we arrived early enough in the evening to beat the dinner rush and there wasn't anyone seated close by us.

As we stood up to make our getaway, we were inundated by two more explosions. That's right, Ava and Lauren simultaneously. Holding back uncontrollable laughter at the complete insanity of the situation, I grabbed Ava and ran into the ladie's room while Kevin took Lauren into the men's room to clean her up.

I was never so happy to return home from a dining out experience. So there you have it folks, our "Infamous IHOP Experience". It wasn't the end of our tummy troubles though. It took the girls over two weeks to completely get over it, and about the time they were better, Kevin and I both got sick. So if you have made it to the end of this little potty log, you will know that this is as real as it gets at the Parker Home.

Quote of the Day:

As I am sitting here at the computer typing, my sweet Lauren has joined me and saw the pictures at the beginning of the post. She said to me, "Can we go back to IHOP mommy? I promise that I won't throw up or go poopy." Hmmm....I'm going to have to think about that one.