Another night of mishaps and miracles....

YUCK.

A while ago, we blogged about a crazy night during which Brandon and I spilled red wine on the carpet, Molly was up all night, and a mouse was trapped out in our kitchen. Well, last night, combined with today...I think this beats it all.

Last night, all was well when we turned out the lights. At 1:30 a.m. Brandon woke up with a headache that he deemed "the worst pain of his life." Yes, the worst pain, not just headache of his life. He said this was much worse than breaking his hand a few years ago, or having a tombstone dropped on his head. (that's a story for another day) I, of course, ran for some Imitrex, assuming he was having his first migraine. (I'm such a pro) After that, paired with Ibuprofin, didn't work, I began to think the worst. As I watched Brandon endure the pain, even in tears at times, I began to think of all the things that could be wrong. I made the mistake of googling his symptoms only to find "aneurysm" "aneurysm" "aneurysm" everywhere! An hour went by, and his pain worsened. We debated about going to the emergency room. I thought about calling my friend Keri who lives near us, or my mother-in-law, who would have to drive across town. As I was debating this, Brandon fell asleep. By now, it was 3:00. I stayed awake until 5:30, which seemed like forever...watching him closely to make sure he was breathing. By six, I was exhausted. And then I realized something. In all this time that Brandon and I were awake, Molly had been sleeping. Molly finaly slept through the night! And Brandon and I were too awake to notice.

In the morning, Brandon's headache was gone. Our Sunday morning routine began as usual..when Ben came up the stairs complaining of a stomach ache. For the faint of heart, this is a warning. Turn back now. Sign out. For those of you that can handle it, read on.

In my 8 years as a mother, I have never had to clean up what I cleaned up this morning. Poor Ben. He made it to the bathroom, only to throw up right in front of the toilet. I asked him why he couldn't lean just a little bit more forward and he said "I don't want to touch the toilet to open it." But it was perfectly okay to regurgitate last night's burger from Spangles, pickles and all. As soon as this happened, he went to lay down in his room for awhile. We figured it was something he ate, so we wanted to wait and see if he was okay for church. Within 10 minutes, he christened the bathroom downstairs with something I can only describe as "unbearable". I immediately recognized the smell from back in 1994, when I came back from a mission trip only to be hospitalized with campylobacter jejuni - food poisoning! I had just finished cleaning the main bathroom, and now I had to clean the kids' bathroom. After Ben showered, he felt better. We thought it was over. We went to church. Ben threw up in the church bathroom and on the church floor. There were even pickles in the urinal! One of the church members was nice enough to mop up after us. I took Ben home, and he showered in our bathroom. You guessed it, our shower was a victim as well.

I went to choir practice. That same church member asked me if Ben had had pickles last night. He said "I've never seen whole pickles come right back up...or out!" Enough said on that.

Brandon stayed home with Ben, while the girls went to Grandma's. When I got home, Brandon informed me that not only did he deal with cleaning up Ben, and cleaning the bathroom, he also caught the much evasive mouse! And Brandon is known for fearing two things: bodily fluids and mice.

Now we are off to the Christmas program at church. Ben will stay home and someone else will take his line: "You know? I kind of miss old Reuben." Yes, yes, he will.