A Little Robby Memory

This past week we have been enjoying the fun of a stomach bug. On Monday Big Robby and I had it, on Tuesday Little Robby had it, and between yesterday and today Jenna has shown minor effects of it. When Little Robby got sick at 12:30am on Tuesday morning I remembered an experience with him several years ago that we found very funny.

When Little Robby was about 18 months old he had a similar stomach bug. Throughout the day he had not been able to keep anything down, not even water, so I called the nurses' line in the evening. They instructed me to wait an hour and then begin giving him a teaspoon of water every 15-30 minutes, gradually increasing the amount throughout the night until I was sure he could keep a significant amount down. I felt so bad because Little Robby was extremely hungry and he kept asking for food, but I thought he wouldn't be able to keep it down. That night I slept next to him and every time he awoke I gave him a very little bit of water, which wasn't satifying at all to him. He would whine, but I tried to explain that he couldn't have more or else he would get sick to his stomach again.

Eventually he fell asleep... or so we thought. The next morning Dad came to check on us and when he saw Little Robby he gasped and exclaimed, "What is that!?" thinking he saw dried blood on his mouth. I bolted awake thinking I was probably laying in throw up and rolled over to look at Little Robby and the bed. As Dad examined Robby he realized that it was chocolate around his mouth!

Apparently Little Robby had decided that if I wasn't going to feed him, he was going to have to fend for himself! All we could figure was that in the night while I was asleep he must have gotten up and gone to the kitchen to find something to eat without waking me. On the kitchen table I had left the remainders of my late-night snack which consisted of a half eaten bag of M&M's (this happen to be a 1lb. bag that I had been snacking on for many days) and a glass that was half-way full of fruit juice. After we saw his chocolate covered mouth we found the remainder of the evidence in the kitchen - a bag of M&M's that was a lot more empty than it had been and an empty glass! Poor kid thought we were starving him! Fortunately for both of us, he managed to keep it all down after he went back to bed.