Murphy's in the Spare Bedroom

There are about 50 higher priority things on my to-do list, but I feel the need to write this blog post while it's still "fresh."

My sister, Colleen, and her family made the trip up to visit us this past weekend. Past get togethers with the Keske's have been, well, memorable (like our infamous Christmas in Utah, and the Keske's last visit to Seattle).  This weekend was equally "special."

They arrived last Thursday and went straight to Katie's house.  Andrew and Seth left for a three night backpacking adventure in the Olympic National Forest, and Katie and Colleen settled in for their first night of single parenting.  Except, Anna was feeling sick.  By the middle of the night, the bed Katie and Colleen were sharing was full of kids - Anna had thrown up, Dallin had wet his bed and sought dryer accommodations, 15-month old Edmund wanted to sleep with his mom, and baby Jordyn joined in when she needed to eat.

Friday morning Colleen and I planned to meet at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle.  As I got in my car to leave that morning, I double checked the directions only to find that my typical route was experiencing "severe delays" due to "emergency road repairs."  We took a different, totally overloaded and maddeningly slow route and arrived 35 minutes later than planned.  Not the most auspicious beginning to our day.

Still, it was wonderful to see Colleen and her kids and get to meet Edmund for the first time, and the Pacific Science Center is a lot of fun to show people who have never previously visited.  We headed straight to the Butterfly House, which is always a kid favorite (and a good place for those not used to our cooler weather to warm up). 

 

We had a little time for exploring before we watched a 3D IMAX video about the National Parks.   The bigger kids enjoyed the effects, but the two babies barely made it through the show.

After lunch, I decided to take a brief break from the PSC to show Colleen and her kids around the Seattle Center.  I'd heard there was a fun new kid playground and wanted to check it out.  

When we found the play area, it did indeed look fun, but it was also swarming with big kids there for end-of-school-year field trips.  We distracted the 3 and under crowd, and let Bryce, Thane, and Elizabeth take a turn going up the climbing structure.  It was quite anxiety-provoking to watch them climb so high with so many other kids pushing their way onto the top ledge, but they all made it safely in the end.  

 

Next, we decided to go looking for the famous Seattle Center fountain.  On our way, Alexander (3 years old), mentioned that his stomach hurt a little bit.  A few minutes later, he puked all over the walkway (we were grateful we were outside, but the middle school classes who walked by a few minutes later might not have felt the same way).

Colleen cleaned him up as best she could, and since Nellie was in the Ergo on my back, Alexander hopped in my stroller.  We began to make our way towards our cars, but less that 15 yards later, Colleen noticed that Edmund (sitting in his stroller) was looking funny.  Before she could react to that awareness, he was also puking - all over himself and his stroller.  Cue clean up part two, but this clean up required he be completely stripped down, and the only available clothing was his big sister's sweater.

 

At this point we made a beeline for our cars and tried to head straight home.  Of course, Seattle traffic had other ideas.  It took 30 minutes just to get on the freeway.  When we were fifteen minutes from my house, I got a call from Colleen. "Can we pull over," she asked, "our puke bowl is almost full and I need to dump it out."

Turns out Elizabeth (5 years old) had thrown up shortly after leaving Seattle.  Poor little girl had no choice but to hold her puke bowl for most of the drive.  Well, until she started to fall asleep, at which point Colleen reached back and grabbed it from her.  Which turned out to be a good thing, because then Colleen was able to get it quickly to Alexander, when he started puking again!

There were a few more vomit episodes that afternoon and evening, but mostly the kids seemed to be recovering quickly and were playing happily.  In the middle of the night, I woke up to check on Nellie and met Colleen in the hallway.  Elizabeth had woken her up in a frantic state. "Mom!" she wailed, "Somebody puked on me!  I know it wasn't me, because I would have woken up, but there is puke all over me!"

She had been the one to throw up, but could not understand how that was even possible.  Colleen threw Elizabeth in the bath, and I threw a full load of dirty laundry in the washing machine.  

The next morning we dialed our original plans back dramatically.  Mark took Bryce and Thane to the annual Trek Around the Trail.  Both boys ran the 1K and did significantly better than last year.  Bryce was disappointed in his performance because he's been jogging with Mark fairly regularly without difficulty, but had trouble running the whole race course.  

 

Afterwards, all the kids claimed to be feeling well, so we took a chance and went to our city's annual parade.   The kids all brought bags, eager to get them filled with candy.  They weren't disappointed.  

Thankfully, we experienced no puking.  We did, however, experience a downpour.  Colleen saved the day.  She had brought three umbrellas!

 

When we got home, the kids got busy making perler bead projects - an activity they spent many, many hours on over the course of the weekend.  

 

We adults realized that the washing machine was leaking.  That final, puke-filled load had done her in.  Admittedly, there's never a "convenient" time for a washing machine to stop working, but this seemed like a particularly inconvenient moment.

When Andrew returned from his trip, he and Mark spent time looking at it and doing research, and decided the problem was likely the drain pump.  We went back and forth on whether it was worth it to order the part and try to fix it, or just buy a new washer since ours is pretty old.  

Finally, on Tuesday we decided it made more sense to buy a new one.  Except, when I went to choose a new model (Oh!  They are so fancy these days!), the soonest we could have anything to our house (even if we moved it ourselves) was this Saturday.  Which doesn't work for us.  Back to the "fix-the-washer" plan.  More on this later.

Nellie loves Alexander

 In the meantime, the Keske kids seemed much better.  Sunday morning we were up and ready for church right on time.  

Bryce reading to everyone before church

As the sacrament was being passed, Bryce leaned over, "my stomach doesn't feel right." He tried going to the bathroom, but when he came back he had the classic, pale green "I'm going to vomit" face, so I hustled him outside where he took his turn fertilizing the plants.  I snuck back in to sacrament meeting and waved Colleen and the rest of the kids out.  We stayed just long enough to snap a picture of all the kids in their church clothes before coming back home.  Poor Bryce is still looking mighty green in the picture.

 

Once home, I started to feel overwhelmingly tired.  We put on Mary Poppins for the kids, and I took Nellie and went to take a nap.  Soon I realized that the tired was not a result of normal going-to-bed-late-and-getting-woken-up numerous-times mom life, but that I was sick.  This point was driven home when Colleen exhibited similar symptoms.  By 3:30, Katie and her crew arrived.  I called Mark home from his church meetings for extra reinforcement, because by this point Graham was also complaining about being sick.  

During the next few hours Seth and Andrew returned and we managed to get everyone fed, but I don't think I was very helpful, and Colleen and I slept a lot of the time.  We both woke up around 8pm feeling significantly better, but still not great. 

Around this time, we realized that we had a leak under the kitchen sink.  The leak had gone unnoticed for quite some time, because the cabinet flooring is completely ruined.  The sink only leaked when we ran the dishwasher, so now we were out a washing machine and dishwasher. 

As the troubles piled up, the joke began that the Keske's brought bad luck.  They began to refer to themselves as "the Murphy's." 

On Monday, the Keske's, who were all feeling better, went off on an adventure with Katie's family.  My little family stayed home to try to recover/wait for the next victim.  Graham kept complaining about feeling "bad" but never threw up.  Since we stayed home and anticipated illness, naturally every one was totally fine.

Twins! These boys are just 3 weeks apart in age.

Tuesday we got the sink leaking problem fixed.  The boys were fascinated watching the repairman check out the problem.  Hurray for one problem solved!  We stayed close to home again, mostly due to a forecast of rain, thunderstorms, and chilly weather.  Uncle Andrew gained "Uncle Points" by wrestling and playing games with the kids. 

We spent a couple hours at the local kid's Play Town.  Nellie made friends with Colleen.

The big boys quickly returned to the money games they'd invented at their last visit, this time including Alexander and Elizabeth.

We spent the afternoon hanging out and going to look at washing machines.  Check out these cousins!

This picture makes it look like Nellie and Edmund were both thoroughly interested in the book.  That is true for Edmund, but Nellie was just trying to hit the book.  Edmund quickly got frustrated having her so close.

 

Mark and Andrew spent a long time working on the stupid washing machine.  The drain pump was nearly impossible to get off because it had rusted stuck.  They decided to add some lubricant, and let it sit overnight.  We chatted for a while, then went to bed a bit later than advisable.

After a couple puke-free days, I was beginning to think we were on the flip side.

I was wrong.

Despite adamantly insisting that he would NOT get sick, even old Iron Will Thane succumbed. In the middle of that night he slipped into my bed and whispered the words no parent wants to hear at 1am (or any time): "I threw up.... In my bed." 

I was simultaneously disgusted and amazed at the vast area he managed to cover with his vomit. Knowing Thane, I imagine that when he woke up and realized he was puking, he probably shook his head to say, "No, No!" resulting in showers of puke spraying every which way.

As I cleaned puke chunks out of his carpet, I admit I kept myself distracted thinking how some day, I'd look back on the blog post I was going to write about this week and find it all terribly funny. 

Still, it will be a while before I'm able to eat roasted broccoli again. Gag.

The Keske's left this morning, probably eager to escape the "adventures" they always seem to have when we're together.  

This evening, Mark replaced the drain pump on the washing machine, and after five days, I was finally able to run a load of laundry.  Hurray!!

Except, it's leaking again.

Guess we'll be getting a new washing machine after all.