Christmas vacation

Our latest travels have not ended well lately. The smell of puke is probably still in my van and I am thinking if anyone else throws up in our van in the next day, we are going to either have to have someone clean it professionally or just get a different van.

This past weekend we had the Williams Family Christmas down in Illinois at Chris' parents house. We had a great time, great food (as always) and some time for the kids to be with the grandparents and cousins.

Our family was still battling this sickness, whatever it is...I still don't quite have my finger on it for sure. Sid was a little under the weather when we left but she just had a cold with a really bad cough. I think she is finally getting better but before the weekend she was really coughing deep and it sounded quite wet. I thought that we would have to take her to the doctor to make sure her cough isn't too bad but I think she has been getting better, slowly.

Saturday night, Quinn was just a bear. He was up probably every 30 minutes or more. Every time he would wake up, he would let out this sort of squeal as if he was in pain somewhere. I held him most of the night and then Chris got up with him around 6:30 am so I could sleep just a little bit. That should have been the first sign that something was wrong but you can always see things a little more clearly when you look back, huh?

During the day, Quinn didn't really eat as much as usual either, which is not normal for him at all. He is a pretty big eater and loves his bottles of milk and can down those so fast, it truly is amazing. That should have been the 2nd red flag.

In the afternoon I noticed that Quinn's breath smelled a little strange when he had the hiccups. It smelled like he was having some acid reflux or something similar but I thought that it was probably just because he had the hiccups. 3rd flag?

Our ride home is a little over 4 hours, more if we stop somewhere to eat or go potty. With three kids, we have to stop at least once. We left Rockford around 3:30 PM, almost got sideswiped by a semi truck that hauled fuel, and then the rest of our ride was pretty smooth. The kids all slept almost 2 hours. Quinn even slept the entire 2 hours which should have been the 4th flag.

The Wisconsin Dells seems to be where we like to stop, grab a bite to eat at one of our favorite places, and just let the kids relax for a little bit and unwind before we finish up our roadtrip. We ate at The Cracker Barrel and had our usual foods...Micah had pancakes, Sid had her 2 sides (she is not a meat lover), I had the Country Fried Steak with my sides for the kids and Chris had Chicken & Rice. He is on a big rice kick lately so this choice really didn't surprise me :) We all finished our food, or most of it, and quinn was still eating. He was eating my corn like it was going out of style.

Then, the magic happened.

Quinn was eating and then he wasn't. All of a sudden, everything he ate for about half of his day came out of his mouth, on the table, on him, on the highchair and on the floor. I feel sorry for all of the people that saw all of this happen while they were eating. Hopefully they had strong stomachs. After he threw up, Quinn went for more corn and even put it in his mouth. As he continued to shove his face with the food that was in his hand, I took him to the bathroom to try to clean him up as best as I could while Chris took care of the table, bill and to get some new clothes for Quinn to wear. I finally got the clothes that he brought for Quinn and they were the clothes that Quinn peed through on the way down to Illinois on Friday. So, Quinn was still wearing dirty clothes but at least they didn't smell like puke or have chunks of food stuck to them.

We got in the car and back on the road and about 15 minutes later, Quinn threw up again. His carseat, clothes and everything around him was just disgusting. He was so sad and so sick. Chris pulled off the road and we went to a gas station so we could get him cleaned up as best as we could and wash us up after we cleaned things in the car. The carseat was pretty bad and Chris almost threw up himself as he was trying to clean it up. Quinn wasn't any better and he was just crying and wanted me to hold him.

He did pretty well the rest of the way home, which was almost 2 hours or driving still. We realized while we were at Grandma & Grandpa's that he likes the Mickey Mouse Club so thankfully we have iPhones and I downloaded a few which made his stop crying immediately.

I think he is getting better now and starting to eat some more foods again and staying hydrated. He has been sleeping a lot today so that has been helpful for him too. He had 3 naps today and he usually doesn't even take 1 during the day.

We are going to attempt to go to my parents' house this weekend...for the 2nd time. My prayer is that we won't have bad weather and that no one will puke in the car! I puked in the car on the way to their house last time so right now our record isn't very good :)