My Cloak of Invincibility

I need to disclaim something: talk of unpleasant bathroom-related inappropriate things lie ahead. Don’t say I didn’t warn you…Dad.

A week ago from right now I was simultaneously vacuuming with a sick baby on my hip, cleaning and organizing my refrigerator in preparation for a feast of excess, sneaking “tastes” from one of two pumpkin cheesecakes, and waiting on my family to arrive.

In the past week and a half, I have (in no particular order): mopped up puke, wiped up diarrhea, roasted a 21-lb. turkey, watched my dad and sister make FOUR recipes of cornbread dressing, chopped, sautéed, baked, and stirred for 36 straight hours, pulled out feather stubs from a turkey butt like pimple-popping, consumed (roughly) 10,000 calories in half an hour, stood outside the mall at minutes-to-midnight, and force-fed Pedialyte to a grumpy baby sick with TWO separate bouts of a stomach virus.

In between preparing for Thanksgiving dinner, preparing Thanksgiving dinner, and burying my face in plates of Thanksgiving dinner leftovers, I have nursed all three of my in-house family members back from the throes of stomach viruses. And no, their throwing up is in NO way correlated to my cooking. Hurtful. Did you even have to ask.

Bean got sick first, and in all its undiluted potency she had it for two days straight, unable to keep anything more than Pedialyte and Gatorade down. By the time she was feeling healthy enough not to be permanently attached to my hip, my parents were here and more than happy to baby-wrangle while my sister and I put on our chef hats. We ate, drank, and were merry, and it was good.

Until we came home at three in the morning after our very first Black Friday experience to find that Hubs, the mighty man of the house, had been brought down. BY GERMS!

(Side bar: to the dude standing in line outside the Apple store FOUR HOURS before it opened, I hope the 8% off the iPad you and everyone else with Internet access received that day was worth it…and to the dirtbag who crop-dusted in the men’s section of Banana Republic seconds before I walked into your potent wall of fart, was that really necessary?)

But alas! Hubs wouldn’t be down and out for long. By Friday evening he was tentatively eating leftovers. Huzzah!

Except that his triumphant plate of hash brown casserole was overshadowed by Bean’s overzealous vomiting sometime past midnight. Really, stomach bug? You already tagged her. I call foul.

So yet another day full of the all-liquid diet, and by Sunday afternoon she was back to animal crackers, bananas and refusing her green beans. That’s my girl.

I thought this nasty bug had had enough of the Buttrams, but I guess we’re just irresistible, and it came back for more, when Bug upchucked his pack of peanut butter crackers last night. And whatever else he ate, until about 2:30 this morning.

At least now, after haggling for a Lunchable (but staying away from the block of processed cheese) he seems to be okay, what with his Buffalo Bill impressions and gun-slinging after a full morning’s therapy of Gatorade and Nickelodeon, and the stomach bug that has terrorized our wee family has nowhere left to turn.

I think it knows better than to mess with me. For the past nine days I have literally been puked, coughed, pooped and vomit-breath breathed on, have snuggled with barfy babes, and have remained stomach bug-free. I’ve even taunted the rascal with joyous overeating, excessive carbonated drinks, lack of sleep and vitamins, and enjoying foods that would be particularly heinous coming back up…like Indian food. I’d knock on wood right now, but I’m so invincible wood knocks on me.

Or something.

So…how was your Thanksgiving?