In the very early hours of Sunday morning, Brynja came down to our bed. That’s not so unusual, but the vomiting that started an hour or so later is, thankfully. Even so, it was a short-lived episode, and we chalked it up to “one of those things.” We discovered later in the day that she had also thrown up in her own bed, but still, she seemed well enough. Stomach flu has been going around, though, so we kept her home on Monday, just to be on the safe side.

Actually, on Monday morning all of the kids were dragging more than usual — even for a Monday — so I decided we’d have a mental health day and let everybody stay home. Everything seemed more or less normal during the day, but late in the afternoon both Tage and Petra started complaining about stomachaches and it was all downhill from there. Just before bedtime, both of them started puking and a couple of hours later the baby got going as well. I slept upstairs with Tage and Petra (well, slept and slept, as they say in Swedish — I was up literally every twenty minutes with one or another heaving child), while Olof took on the baby downstairs.

I charted the last kid puking at 7:30 yesterday morning, just before my own stomach started with the tell-tale rumbling. Olof was in the same boat as I, having weathered the night okay enough, but feeling rougher and rougher as the new day dawned. Needless to say, we were all home again. And again today, though we’re feeling much improved. I think the stomach issues are pretty well sorted for everybody, but we’re all still in various stages of “not great.”

If nobody gets any worse between now and then, I’m planning to send all of the kids back out into the world tomorrow if I can manage it. Three sick days together for an entire family are more than enough.