OK, this is really just for the record sort of stuff, so if you are queasy with any mention of bodily functions or excretions, then I would advise you to click away now.

I guess it started last Wednesday, which isn’t quite a week ago. On Wednesday night we had an accident that I would prefer to forget. As much as we are careful with the kids and hot things, I guess accidents still can happen. Nathan did the unthinkable and jumped off his step (the one he stands on at the end of the kitchen bench so he can see and be involved in cooking), knocking me as I was carrying a casserole dish full of steaming hot pumpkin soup. It splashed onto my foot which was horrible enough, but poor Nathan was nearly drenched in the soup. I picked him up and rushed him to the bath, and started putting cold water onto his lower legs and feet because that was all I could see at first that was burnt, but as his screaming continued I looked elsewhere and found that over half his back and bum was also bright red. The plug went into the bath so his burnt feet would be covered with cold water, and I sat him down on a small step with his back under the tap so that the cold water could run down his back. Oh, how I wish I’d noticed his back first. After an hour under the running cold water, hoping that he wasn’t getting hypothermic (he didn’t seem to be particularly cold), I finally hauled him out and dried him off. Nathan’s feet were fine, with maybe just a touch of red on one of them. Most of the redness had gone from his back and bottom, but there were a few nasty looking patches with blistered skin.

The next day, Thursday, we visited the doctor to discuss how to look after his burns. He gave me a prescription for some ointment and told me to smear it onto non-stick absorbent patches and put over the blisters. It is easy to put one on his back and bandage it in place, but I’m finding that keeping a patch on his bum where there is so much movement is really hard!

Also on Thursday we went to our regular playgroup and one of the children was sick with gastro. He had had diarhoea but the mother brought him because he had seemed fine for 48 hours. I didn’t even know he had been sick when I saw him sharing popcorn from a big bowl with my two kids and other kids as well. And then he had a bout of diarhoea at playgroup with poo running down his legs. All I could hope was that I didn’t end up with two sick kids.

Friday night, about 36 hours after playgroup, we were at Chadstone shopping centre when Nathan did a projectile vomit or two or three inside a shop! How revolting! We took him home as soon as we could, and was sick several more times during the night. We stayed home all Saturday, not wanting to repeat the experience of a child vomiting in a public area, but Nathan seemed to be ok.

Perhaps I jinxed us when I suggested to Andrew on Saturday night that if it took 36 hours for Nathan to come down with some sort of gastro illness after playgroup, then Toby might get sick Sunday morning since it was 36 hours after Nathan was sick. It was sort of fortuitous that our plans for Sunday had been cancelled because Toby had diarrhoea on Sunday morning and we weren’t keen to go out if there was the chance that we’d have to deal with diarrhea or vomiting.

So now we are up to Monday and have barely set foot out of the house in three days. I am thankful that Toby wasn’t burnt with the hot soup. He so easily could have been because he was also in the kitchen area when I dropped the bowl. I’m also thankful that though I have had two sick kids, they don’t seem to have been sick at the same time. I just hope that Toby is better soon because, quite frankly, I’m over all the cleaning associated with poo and vomit.