Johnnie Gastroenteritis

This day started out strange and stayed that way. Tuesday routine called for a Johnnie shower then McDonald's for breakfast. And we did both. But Johnnie was not hungry at all. In fact he was complaining about a stomach ache. Uh-oh. Does a stomach ache warrant Johnnie staying home from school? My gut says not so fast. True enough, he declared he needed to poop, and proceeded to eject whatever he had eaten from the night before. Immediately he declared he was much better and that he was perfectly fine to go to school. Now my worry of course was that he would poop in his pants AT school, since he had already done so while at home. How can you tell a 7-yr old to hold his poop? Still, I dropped him off to school and crossed my fingers that I wouldn't get a call at some point during the day. Turned out that I did get a call, but not from Mar Vista Elementary. I got a call from Lisa. Apparently SHE had stayed home from work with exactly the same symptoms as Johnnie. Her stomach was unsettled and she had diarrhea. Uh-oh. What the heck did mom and son eat anyway? They may both have the same intestinal infection. Also turned out all she wanted was for me to drop off the dog since she was all alone in the house and needed something to hug I guess. Easy enough for me to drop off Claire. It gave me just about enough distraction anyway since I - now WE, as in my boss - was waiting for the UDS data to get finished going through the audit and comment process so we could submit it. That damn James STILL hasn't finished doing his stuff and it is due TODAY.  At least he did respond to my emails today and I don't think I can pass along any more urgency than I already have. That guy just beats to his own tune is all and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Except to back him up in the future. Next time I will take more control. I know I know that IS counter-productive. Today I am giving in to that egoic need to control. Along with my other darker side negative tendencies. That is the only explanation I have as to why Johnnie is going through physical stuff right now on my watch, as apparently Lisa is as well. All one big gigantic distraction. Even the weather tooka different turn today, reversing the streak of warm days. It actually drizzled a little this morning. That's just what I wanted. Johnnie is not 100% AND it's raining, and I'm grumping over the UDS submission. A perfect time to try to reverse everything... in my head. By 2 PM, James actually did finish the Data Audits and an hour later, the UDS report was submitted. YAY! A huge thing off our collective shoulders. And I noted I hadn't heard anything from the school which means Johnnie had hung in there for the day. I decided to pick him up earlier than usual in fact. As in 4 PM early.  As soon as we got home he pooped again and I noticed he had pooped a little on his underwear. Oh well, his pants were their usual dirty anyway. Just one more thing to soak I guess. The thing was that he seemed to be hungry. He declared that he wanted chicken noodle penne for dinner and I cooked the usual amount, which was enough for 3 bowls. He ended up eating just that: 3 bowls of penne noodles in chicken noodle broth. I on the other hand ended up eating a salad and a Trader Joe's cheeseburger burrito in my freezer for my dinner. I was fully aware that usually we would be eating Panda Express this evening, but I was just glad Johnnie didn't have a full on diarrhea event at school. I am thinking he will be much better by tomorrow morning. In the meantime, I still had work to do. After all, it is Tech Council Meeting week, though this time I just wanted the thing to be over. I had plenty of material. I was sure I had an hour's worth. So I really wasn't all that worried about it. I went to bed fairly early. That is to say I didn't stay up past 11 PM doing work stuff. We will see about tomorrow...