Bed bugs, lice and a bit of puke......

Greetings! I trust you are all doing well? I have noticed that the comments have been low as of late.....

As I shared in last post, Tim and I had a wonderful week visiting my family in Oregon. Here's another pic from the journey....my niece, Gracie, loves this little stone frog in my parents' yard. It reminds me of this weekend.....

We were so encouraged and blessed by God's provision and grace. I shared that I would need to remember God's faithfulness this week to get me through some of the difficult times that were sure to come.....

Well...they started up again on Thursday. I started getting chills Thursday morning and then
a tummy ache and painful joints.....then we went back to work with the kids and our 11 year-old brought over lice and bed bugs. Eeeww. Thursday night, I decided it would be best to nip those nits in the bum....so we treated the lice, boiled his clothes and shaved his head. It was a pretty big and ooky job, but it was done and we had some "bonding time" as a result. We're hoping the lice are gone and we're praying the bed bugs disappear...so far so good. But then the five year-old decided to be a booger. His defiance was clear and so we put him to bed a bit earlier than usual thinking that his belligerence had a lot to do with being sleepy and crabby.

Then, at about midnight, there was a knock at our bedroom door. It was our five year-old....he had puked ALL OVER his bed, the floor, over toys and books, leaving a trail of chicken, rice and vegetable puke from his room to his bathroom...then all over the bathroom...the shower curtain, bath mat and toilet. The smell was enough to burn your nose hairs and permanently damage your senses. I gagged and having the flu myself, began to hurl. Thankfully I didn't have anything in my tummy, so it was just water. Good thing, too.

So we spent the next hour or two washing, scrubbing and wiping off books, blankets, carpets and our boy sat on the couch with a bowl, some bubbly water, and a blanket. Every few minutes he'd say, "B....B....B? Who's gonna sit with me?" I explained that it was going to take two people to clean up all the puke and that he needed to stay still and rest. Yeah, right.

At 1:30 am, I finally collapsed into bed, shaking and trembling in joint pain and stomach cramps. Tim collapsed on the couch as our boy couldn't go back to sleep in his room. Tim got far less sleep with a five year-old staring at him all night.

The morning was filled with laundry washing and trying to get a hold of a carpet company that could get rid of the carpet puky smells and the stains. Our boy managed to ruin two rugs, five books, and two towels with the puke....they were just beyond help. Then we called his family to see what they wanted us to do with him....

This is where I began to go a little nutsy. His caregiver explained that he was just playing games with our heads so that he could go home....he just worked himself into a tizzy bit of stress and made himself throw up to get attention. AAACKKKK! I thought, "No kid is that nuts...throwing up sucks, there's no way he MADE himself do this....right?"

As the morning went on, his behavior got worse and worse. He was demanding and found every possible way of destroying or disrespecting our home and our authority. But he did it with such an innocent cheeky smile on his face that really could be read as devious and evil. I was stunned......and low on patience. Tim and I discovered that what his caregiver had said was totally true. Whenever he would begin to complain about his tummy aching, I would give him the bowl to puke in, but I'd say, "If you puke you can't watch a movie or play a game because you're sick." And immediately he's push away the bucket and be "just fine".

Then he'd ask for some food and juice....I'd get him just a little (because if he IS sick, I don't want to make things worse!) and he'd 'change his mind'....he wanted ice cream and cookies instead....then if I wouldn't give it to him, he'd say, "My tummy hurts, I can't eat it..." Or I'm not hungry anymore....surprise, surprise.

So we decided to treat him as a very sickly boy... bucket had to be with him at all times....no playing outdoors....he had to rest on the couch all day....no nintendo or games....just movies and rest. Needless to say, he seems to be "feeling much better" now. Mmmm. What a booger.

Oh, Lord. Give us grace to get through these next few weeks of work!

And then the Lord had my dear friend, Rebecca, call from "the promise land", Manitoba (or so she thinks). It lifted my spirits and gave me such joy....the evening got better. And then the Canucks won....that helped, too. God was giving new grace....

And today, things seem to be going better...His mercies are new every morning....no puking, no bed bugs....dead lice are gracing the linens of our older boy. Ahhh, things are slowly getting back to normal. In fact, our younger, puking boy is "all better"....no complaints of tummy pain or even appetite trouble....he is totally back to the normal boy we know....still defiant, but when I told him that sick kids can't have dessert, he miraculously recovered.....sugar covers a multitude of sins. :) If only I could take joy in the times of trial....I'm learning and God is good.

Be blessed.