Shat everywhere

My seemingly freelance life has been a bit crazy lately......the deadline for the paper is looming near and I find myself writing about things I have absolutely zero experience with....for example a Winnebago Rally (yes, those who love their RV do get to have a great big party - it's called a Grand National Rally) and Tractor Rides (again, the lovers of their John Deer unite!). So, with the kid officially out of school for 1.5 days, I decided that yesterday, I would lend a helping hand to one of my good friends, and run her daycare while she attended a soccer tournament in VT that her son is playing in. It seemed like a good idea at the time; my kid would have other kids to keep her occupied all day, and in turn, bother me to buy her ice cream from the Good Humor truck, much less. Mind you, I am ultra-sensitive to her current situation because she is much like me in the sense that she commits herself to a million things before she adds up the hours and compares those to what are actually in a day. She doesn't really start to back off until she has become a screeching neurotic sociopath and her husband and family have moved in to a hotel.

So yesterday, I was in charge of 7 screaming children, plus my own and my friends' daughter - no biggie. I'd dealt with more than that in one shot before, so I was fine. However, I did not plan on one of them having a mild intestinal issue and another having a full fledged belly bug. It started in the morning when the first one, who is still in diapers, started prancing around the room, giggling while he blew out the room. When I went to change his pants, he had shat - all the way up his back and down his legs. What he really needed was a bath, but I couldn't leave the other kids' alone, so I had to make due with half a bag of wipes and a fresh change of attire. Then, after nap, his sister woke up and immediately threw up, all over the carpet in the daycare room. Again, I've dealt with 2nd time around soup, so I cleaned up, ushered her inside and called her parents. Right before they got there though, she ran in to the bathroom and vomited again, this time, so forcefully that......yep, you guessed it, she shat. Good Lord.

Now I don't blog this to make light of these poor, little, flu-ridden children. I love them dearly and have known them and their parents for nearly 7 years. I blog it because of my outrage surrounding this: When her parents got there, I had her stripped and was changing her.....and do you know what her father said to me? "Does she even have a fever?" I looked at him with a regurgitated chicken sandwich on my shoe, a pair of shit-streaked princess underwear in my hands and his snivelling pre-schooler sobbing in to my shoulder and said "Does it really fucking matter?"

See, I can tell all of you, because you don't know them and they don't know this blog, so it's a win-win. I can now "put it on a balloon and let it go" like my dear friend, who owns the daycare, says so well.

Happy Weekend!!