A Sick Day...

I got to spend Valentine's Day cleaning up vomit and wiping Andy's face as he hovered over the toilet. Sound pleasant?

For the record, this is totally the fault of his SPD. Why, you ask? I'll tell you. His stomach distress was caused by one of two reasons. Either a) one of the million things he constantly sticks in his mouth had germs on it, or b) his ingestion of red sprinkles pushed him over the edge.

To explain the germ thing...Andy likes to chew on things. I bought him some chewy pencil toppers for school. We put the first one on his pencil and within a few days he managed to break the pencil it was on and then throw it away...with the pencil topper still attached. The other ones from the package somehow disappeared. I have looked and looked and never was able to find them. I haven't ordered replacements yet.

When I went to Andy's Friendship Party on Friday I saw that all of his pencils are chewed to the point that the paint has flaked off of them and the metal ring that holds the eraser is all deformed. I was disgusted! That is so gross! I immediately talked to the principal and have arranged for him to be allowed to chew gum in class, and have ordered some replacement chew tubes for his pencils.

However, he chews on all kinds of things, even when at home. He likes to put his Nintendo DS stylus in his mouth while he plays. I have found him with the wrist strap for the Wii remote in his mouth. Or the nunchuck. Anything and everything. This is all relatively new to me. He never used to mouth things. It's been within the last 6 months, but it's gotten bad quickly. There's no telling what germs he's been exposed to in the last week.

If it wasn't germs, it was Red40. As you probably know, I have Andy on a Red40 restriction. He's been on the restriction since July 2009. My dear husband took the boys out yesterday morning to get donuts for breakfast so I could sleep in. Good in theory. However, he let Andy pick out a chocolate donut with red and pink sprinkles on it. Against my better judgement, I figured it wouldn't hurt too much to let Andy eat it. He ate the whole thing.

I should have known better. The last time Andy "accidentally" ingested something with red40...orange soda while out with his uncles...he was up all night with diarrhea and severe abdominal pain.

So, which one do you think it is? Does he have a virus from some germs he picked up? Or is he sick from the red40? I have no idea. It really could be either one. Or maybe a combination of both.

All I know is that I'm sick of cleaning up puke.