Boring feels pretty good after the rough finish of last year.

See, over Christmas we had 4 separate medical emergencies.

Pedro gave us a scare leading us to consider his shunts may have failed. A mad rush for some necessary scans and some phone calls to his medical team reassured us that he was in fact, ok. He thought it was pretty funny later that day.

The next evening out little Ruavis gave us another scare. Ruavis is in palliative care, and three of us, at three separate times thought he had passed. He was looking better the following days.

The next day, Christmas Eve, David’s illness took a turn for the worse and he had several moments where he would stop breathing for up to a minute- and he was vomiting with dramatic diarrhea. On Christmas Eve in Guatemala it is hard to get any medical diagnostics. His doctor changed his antibiotics to injections, and when labs opened again, he had a double lung infection and a mean parasite!

On Christmas Day, Augusto decided to emulate his brother and has a seizure that alarmed us as it presented a new post seizure phase than we’ve seen from him. Like his brother, he thought it was funny later but my nerves were pretty fried.

So… boring feels pretty great!

I suppose 2024 has had its excitement as well.

We are (hopefully) at the end of a mean little stomach virus that his 12 of the Fulp families kids.

Little Manuel started it, and decided to share. He is pretty tiny still, so he got some lab work early on.

When I arrived on Friday, I was given the full rundown– 8 of the kids were now leaking or spewing.

Mami Wanda called in the Calvary and Rosario came in on her day off to help out!

Generally it takes 2 people– one for the kiddo, and the other to protect the scene of the crime from other kids who might crawl too close, or obsessively need to roll a ball through every puddle in existence **cough cough- Cesar.

Humberto never fails to disappoint in this area. The boy can vomit. Others can spew, but none like him.

The twins led the fever front, and kept us on our toes with meds, pedialyte, cool cloths and even a lukewarm shower or two.

Every child we went to move was overflowing from one end or the other.

There was pretty constantly one of us cleaning some mess, or treating some fever. No sooner would one boy get cleaned up than his sister would outdo his display.

The grand prize has to go to Alison.

Alison can walk. This means her explosive display is widespread.

On an average day, she is potty trained. But something in her does not mind being… not dry.

She was off playing on her own, so we did not know what was coming until we were sitting down for supper.

There was this terrible smell declaring our fate. We searched until we found the source was Alison. Her dress was soaked.

At this time, Flor came out of the back room where she found Jenny crawling through some ‘water’ that smelled terrible and was on the floor.

***If you just verbally expressed disgust… you are correct- she found the pudding.

The kids started eating alone as all three of us scrambled from here. Rosario cleaning a mess with some kids on the patio, Flor running Jenny through the autoclave, and me discovering the full extent of the damage.

It was staggering!

She had covered a lot of surface area including about 2 thirds of the play room flor, and her trip to the table looked like she waled back and forth about 8 times. She also got into the back bathroom at some point.

Cesar was secured at the table so odds of a ball or truck running through this sludge were low.

I took Alison for some serious shower scrubbing.

When Flor finished with Jenny, I heard her surprised exclamation when she too discovered the extent of Alisons range.

It took the two of us 20 minutes to wash the child, the floor, and every surface in between.

Alison has the audacity to be in a great mood through all this.

When we came back to the table, we mixed up more electrolytes and filled the little tsunami’s cup.

I told her she didn’t need to eat, and just to focus on the drink. So naturally she wanted to eat every bite.

I am pretty sure she lost a quarter of her weight in liquid, but she continued to be in a very happy mood all evening. She had to be really sick to smile all night without a trace of sass!

So yeah, boring!

Boring is nice.