Did You Remember to Wash Your Hands?

Picture this . . .Last Thursday night, me and the kids head to the store for a little time out of the house and oh, yes, the all important milk, bread, egg, cheese and produce run. . . 2 hours and $225 later I spy a pizza shop across the way. Since it is now almost 8PM and less than 1/2 hour to bedtime for my youngest. I suggest we head on over for some pizza. Did my kids complain? Of course not! Out comes the hand sanitizer and we all "wash up." We waited a reasonable amount of time at the table before my kids, one by one of course, headed off to the restroom. Thankfully my oldest DD takes them so I don't have to leave the others unattended. As they return I ask the standard "Did you wash your hands?" Which of course they answer was, in each case , yes. We eat. We get ready to leave when up jumps Wyatt. He darts over to the bloody shooting, not fit for humanity video game and picks up the gun. Kicking and screaming we leave the pizza shop at 9:30 PM. We go home, I carry in , undress and change 3 of my 4 adorable children and place them in bed without brushing their teeth (nor washing their hands.) Friday 6PM. . . I hear "Mom! I pooped!" Loudly repeated three times from the far bathroom. My twins are 4, but I don't let them wipe themselves yet and they are fiercely trained on this issue. This also ensure that they WASH THEIR HANDS!!! When I arrive in the bathroom, I discover a toilet stained with spatter, splashes and such all over the seat, the lid and the floor. . . you guessed it! DIARRHEA! So for the next 4 hours I am wiping a rather ooey bottom almost regularly. Fast forward to breakfast. I make oatmeal. Wyatt LOVES oatmeal. After one full bowl and half of his brother's unfinished cereal, I hear (again from the far bathroom) "Mom, I Puked!" While I'm cleaning this lovely mess I hear from the farther bathroom "Mom! I pooped!" This is now the 2nd twin, same mess as last night, but 12 hours later. Onto the afternoon and Walker has a fever. We stay home from church on Sunday. I feel a little guilty as other than pretty regular diarrhea trips in the bathroom, my kids seem okay. Fast forward to Monday. J & M both start on diarrhea. Then Tuesday, both girls have fevers, can't study or do their school work (we do school at home). The diarrhea continues with all 4 kids and Jessica also pukes blueberries all over the bathroom floor, not once, but twice. She didn't see the need to try and make it to the toilet (which her 4 year old brothers figured out all by themselves.) So by Wednesday I have 4 sick kids and DIARRHEA!!! By Thursday I have a temp of 104' and can't move myself from my bed. I hurt in places I didn't know you could hurt. I mean, come on, a toothache from the flu? Sharp, dreadful pains in the balls of my feet, sweeping pains from my head to my feet (and even my toenails) is not normal! This was ridiculous! I managed to teach Jessica 4 of her subjects and she seemed to feel much better. I crawled into bed at 2pm and other than a bit of moaning and pleading with my kids to just watch a movie and not burn the house down, I didn't move. I got out of bed this morning at 7:00 AM, thinking "FINALLY! We're all better!" Not 2 steps to the bathroom and I almost collapsed. Not better yet. . . and guess what? Jessica almost didn't move today either. She's been in bed next to me all day while I've attempted to work with Mikensee on the subjects she's now behind in from my laptop. Now this is really interesting, I know, but what does this have to do with washing your hands? You weren't paying attention, were you? Wyatt actually touched that filthy video game with his hands and not that the filth on the screen wasn't enough, he brought this nasty little bug home. Guess what? I didn't wash his hands!!! Now I suppose we could have gotten this over week long bug from somewhere else, like say the shopping cart. BUT, I did use a cart wipe and I also used hand sanitizer at the grocery store. Let this be a lesson to you all!!! Did you remember to wash your hands???

On the upside, the grocery's I bought last week are still safely in the refrigerator!