Update on our Saltines Situation.
1. Mr. Stinkerbean got it and slept for 18 hours straight. (I’ve got to come up with a better codename for him. How about Mr. Banks? Does that make me Mrs. Poppins?)
2. I just found out from a friend who’s kid has the same EXACT thing and our same doctor that once the virus hits the lower G.I. tract (and you know what I mean by that), it can take up to 5 or 6 days to clear the system. I’m having flashbacks of the “Rotavirus Christmas” but somehow feel more prepared to handle it mentally.
3. You may wonder how I have time to post during this madness. Well, during the daytime, she doesn’t want to sleep by herself in her room. She wants to sleep “dahn-stahrs” with Mama. So, I sit with her on the couch and try not to make too much noise by her side. What better quiet therapy is there besides Internet crawling? Have you searched for herb gardens lately? They’re hard to find in a modern all white format.
4. One of the saddest parts is that Friday night we went out as a family for her 5 p.m. dinner since we’d been stuck in the house from the 12-inches of new snow. She was so excited to be out and about. Something had clicked with her about how babies are different than big girls and that big girls put all of their pee pee and poo in the potty. She felt it coming twice during the day and we rushed to the potty with success. Then, she felt pee coming at the family pub (a glorified bar with enough highchairs to accommodate a toddler at every table in the joint). Mr. Banks and I looked at each other frozen, silently asking, “Do we really let her do it here?” I jumped off the cliff of germ paranoia and let her sit on an actual bar toilet. How could I explain to her that potty training doesn’t apply to public restrooms? I sat there and let her revel in her potty joy as I trembled at the sight of brown, splatter stains on the tile walls. (In my mind I was already giving her a bath and wondering how soon a toddler can learn to squat over a toilet.) Fast forward to her waking up in her own vomit. When I picked her up, she started crying because she felt pee coming and she wanted to sit on her potty and not go in her diaper. She insisted, so I let her sit on her little toilet with a towel wrapped around her as she was throwing up in a trashcan. At least it brought her a little mental comfort.
5. I am now using rubber gloves to change her diapers to cut down on the erosion of my hands.
stinkerbean 
