B's got the cat flu

We woke up at 2:00 this morning to a panicked "Mommy! I bawfed!" followed immediately by the unmistakable sound of more barfing. Poor little dude was sick as a dog. Errr, a cat, I mean. M helped him to the bathroom while I cleaned up the mess. As I was headed down the stairs in the dark with an armful of barfy bedclothes, I very narrowly missed stepping in not one but two huge piles of cat barf on the steps. Why must they barf on the steps?! And always on carpet? Good grief, only three rooms in our entire house have carpet, yet the dumb cats NEVER barf on the hardwood floors where it's easy to clean up. Then I found another half dozen cat barf sites this morning in the light of day. Gross.

At one point, we very nearly took B to the emergency room last night. He was screaming his head off, writhing in pain. It went on & on & on, and we were starting to think he had a burst appendix. But I finally got him calmed down enough to explain that when your tummy's upset, the best way to help it feel better is to lie still and be quiet. He tried that out, and the screaming/writhing went away.

B seemed better at first this morning, until he walked into Z's room where I was getting her dressed. When he opened his mouth to say something to me, he projectile-vomited all over the floor instead. The floor covered with an unwashable throw rug whose colors run when they get wet; lucky for him I'm much more forgiving toward kid barf than cat barf. Plus I'm the one who was stupid enough to put an unwashable rug on the floor of a kid's room, so really it's all my fault, not his.

Now it's late afternoon and he really does seem better. He's running a fever but has managed to keep his stomach contents in his stomach since the morning projectile vomiting episode. The cat is better too.

I hope I don't get it next. I've already had the stomach flu at least three times that I can think of in the past year and I really don't need it again. But he did insist on sleeping all snuggled up with me for the rest of the night, so my odds of dodging it aren't very good. I have been engaging in an OCD-level of handwashing though. And not eating much, just in case it decides to come back up later on.