Belly Achin'

The Bug has been complaining that his belly hurts since Saturday. At first, I thought that he was trying to be like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which is one of his favorite stories and therefore gets read 1,000,000 times a day.

The Bug had never said his belly (or anything else that hadn’t recently hit the floor or some other solid surface) hurt before, so I wasn’t sure that he even knew what he was saying. Besides, his behavior wasn’t any different than usual, he didn’t have a fever, and when he said it on Sunday he had consumed 2 bananas, a bowl of Cheerios, a grown-up size blueberry waffle, mannacotti, broccoli and popcorn. It wasn’t yet 3:00. So, Ralph and I chalked it up to The Bug learning how to express that his belly is full.

When I came home from work yesterday afternoon, my dad said that he’d been saying that his belly hurts again. My dad wasn’t concerned, he said that he’d played hard and was getting tired. When I asked him he said that his belly didn’t hurt.

I put him down for a nap. He woke up sobbing, which is unusual. He said that his bellybutton hurt. Well, of course it does, he shoves everything that isn’t nailed down into that thing. Literally, I pick food, lint (that he has picked off of a blanket to put in there), stickers, everything out of his bellybutton.

When I picked him up he started to gag and spit out some saliva, but no throw up. I consulted Dr. Spock…that made me even more nervous, basically everything could be appendicitis: fever or no fever, pain or not so much pain, even most doctors can’t tell without an x-ray. Just Fucking great!

Soon after my consultation with Dr. Freekoutthemommy, The Bug pooped. Eureka! He must just be constipated. After the poop he said that his belly didn’t hurt, and since he still didn’t have a fever, I set off to take him to my in-laws where he stays on Monday nights during the school year.

I told the in-laws about the belly issues and told them to call if they noticed him acting out of character. When we called to say goodnight (they, of course, were still playing well past his bedtime) they said that he had complained of his belly hurting, but that they thought that either he was just telling them that he was full, or that he just really liked all the attention that he got from saying that he wasn’t feeling good.

When they called 2 hours later I was panicked. Ralph’s dad was trying to tell me stuff, but since Ralph was running the shop vac (which I will discuss further in my next post) I couldn’t hear anything, so I called back. When I got back on the line, Ralph’s mom said that she’d told Ralph’s dad to call so that I wouldn’t worry. The Bug was fine.

I called to check on him 3 times today before I picked him up at 2:00. He was fine, no complaints. When I got to their house, The Bug was still napping. When he woke up, he was cranky, but then Ralph’s dad got him up at the first sign of stirring, where I would have let him wake up more fully before going to get him.

As we were getting ready to leave, which The Bug REALLY didn’t want to do, Grandpa picked him up. The Bug gagged, and threw up a little. He whined and cried the whole way home (a 40 minute drive) and has been lying on the couch for most of the last hour, poor guy.

I feel like such an ass, such a bad mommy.