Is It A Coincidence or Not?

I have two kids home with me today. Younger Boy with his animal nose band-aid and a puking Middle Boy. The boys went over to play at Jolie’s (Jane’s mom) yesterday so that my fiancé and I could have a day together to spend some quality time. I woke up this morning (after a night of tossing and turning) to the sound of a boy puking and gagging in the bathroom. My fiancé was up at the time so he handled it, however when I woke up I went into the room and (as I thought) discovered that a majority of it had ended up in the bed sheets.

Now there is something that has been on both my and my future hubby’s mind. Middle Boy has had a history of getting sick after spending time over at Jolie’s place (and occasionally with Jane). We have some theories I wanted to run by you lovely ladies. (I can’t remember what I originally named Jane’s mom so let’s just call her Jolie)

Theory One – Not So Healthy Food
In the beginning months of me moving here (and when the boys were rotating overnight weekend visits at Jane’s) Middle Boy had the tendency to start puking. We thought that perhaps it was related to the types of foods she was feeding him. At our home he received nutritious homemade meals and fresh fruits and veggies. We baked chicken nuggets or grilled hamburgers once in a while or ordered in pizza on nights that we’re just running out of time. And once in a blue moon the boys get fast food when they’re out with their aunts (my future hubby’s sisters) … but that’s the extent of fast food in their systems. When they are with Jolie and Jane they often are fed fast food, corn dogs, chips and other snacks that we usually don’t have in our home. In short, we thought maybe his stomach was being sensitive to the change in the type of food that he was being offered between both of our households. (This theory was also applied to Younger Boy’s Flamin’ Hot Cheetos vomit incident.)

Theory Two – A Not So Healthy Environment
Now as I work in the pet industry I don’t knock people who have a lot of pets. It does, however, worry me when I walk into your house and it smells like a petting zoo. In fact, I think that I’ve walked into barns that smelled better than Jolie’s house. I have great concerns in sending them over there, but that’s where she lives and we don’t have much choice in that matter. Let me explain … Jolie lives with her sister Ruth (who actually owns the house and has the big heart to rescue and take care of all the animals).

Concern 1 – It’s just not all that clean. There are quite a few animals in that house. (How they got there is another story.) There’s at least three dogs, 8 cats, 4 birds, three turtles, a guinea pig, a mouse … I think I’m missing some more but I could be wrong. I know that there used to be iguanas but those were adopted by someone. There’s cat litter, cat/dog body fluids all over the place (including couch and table tops [table tops they eat on]). You walk in there and you feel a film of ickyness start to cling to your skin … and all you want to do it get out of there. I’ve slept in that house once. I never wanted to sleep there again and luckily I had convinced my fiancé to move out anyway. One of the main reasons I don’t like going over there anyway is that I can’t stand the ickyness of it.

Concern 2 – There is a hole in the wood floor. I kid you not. The wood floor was installed by someone Ruth knows (knew). And it started sagging, and then it became a hole. I assume it’s caused by 1) its an older house and the floor supports are all funky and 2) a cheap and poorly done floor installation. They’ve moved the couch so that it covers the hole. But that scares the heck out of me too. How the heck do they know that the couch isn’t going to fall through the floor?

Concern 3 – This house is located in the not so great part of the city. I grew up a couple of streets down so I know this from experience. I grew up in my dad’s family house, and the neighborhood went to shit around it and the other nice folks that lived there. All it takes is a couple of bad apples (drug dealers) to turn a neighborhood sour. When I was little there was a pipe bomb in the playground across the street. There was a drug dealer two doors down that got shot at (his house was shot at multiple times). We woke up with a bullet in our window. I joke (yet am serious) when I tell people that I can hit the light switch and the floor in one swift fluid motion. Jolie and Ruth’s house isn’t that far from where I used to live. I know for a fact some guy was shot at the corner intersection. I also know for a fact that the apartment complex across the street from their house is shady.

Back on topic, it’s Concern 1 that relates to this post. I have this nagging wonder if the condition of that house has something to do with Middle Boy getting sick all the time. Like I said, this is not the first time he’s come back from spending the day over there. He also spent the night over there the time that he woke up with a raging ear infection. I wondered if maybe he had gotten something in his ear canal that caused it to inflame that badly and that quickly. Because he was doing pretty well the last time I had seen him (that Sunday morning).

Anyway, is it a coincidence that Middle Boy keeps getting sick when he goes over to see them or is it possibly a combination of these theories that he’s getting sick. The boy doesn’t get sick, except for these instances. Although he did manage to catch a 24-hour flu bug from class, the joys of kindergarten.

We’re kind of at a loss of how to approach this. We’re don’t want Middle Boy to continue getting sick whenever he comes back from their place, but we can’t exactly link that he’s getting sick from being over there (even though he pretty much always gets sick when he goes over there).

So here I am … with a band-aid nosed Younger Boy and an upset stomached Middle Boy.