Christmas Here

We had a nice visit with my parents and sister before Christmas.  While we were away, Gabby began to run a low grade fever off and on.  She was tired, but made it through.  We got home on Friday and tucked her and Ellie in to bed, both a little on the sick side.  We were awoken early on Christmas Eve morning, to hear Gabby cry on her way to the bathroom.  I assumed an upset tummy, but she said she had pain in her chest.  After a few quick questions, we decided it was about her lung and not her heart.  She was breathing okay, so Justin sat with her while I started the process to find an urgent care that accepted our insurance, and was open.  No one was at that hour.  We kept a watchful eye, and I left with her to arrive just before the clinic opened.

We were seen quickly--such a blessing!  No flu, but the PA we saw suspected pneumonia and ordered an x-ray.  We were told it was hazy, so we got her prescription for an antibiotic and we went on our way.  Grateful.

Poor Ellie has spent the past day getting more sick though.  Justin set an alarm to get up and check children in the night, as he had the night before, but before it went off I heard Ellie thrashing.  I found her with a slight fever, but very agitated.  In the time I checked on Gabby and got her some medicine to reduce her fever, her temperature had shot up three and a half more degrees.  We fought to bring the fever down with cold compresses, then we finally tried a different fever reducer, as nothing else we did was bringing her temperature down.

The other children, not knowing how ill she had been in the night, woke her with excitement for Christmas morning.  She perked up a bit for presents, but slept through breakfast and stockings.  She has had two more rounds of the higher than we like fevers, so that's been Christmas here.

We are so grateful their illnesses have not needed hospital stays, but it has been a bit of a melancholy Christmas here.  We had plans to have our turkey on Saturday, go to a candle light service, worship with our church on Christmas, and visit with some friends.  Things had to be shifted, including a grocery trip on Christmas Eve, since our turkey wasn't baked and we would be home all day on Christmas, where I oscillated between such gratitude that Gabby was well enough to skip the ER and being upset for the change in plans, which culminated when I gashed my finger on the cart as I was moving my things to the conveyor belt.  I don't even know how I did it, but it stings and doesn't want to close up, an aggravation and pain on top of the other things.  The meringue on my pies went flat.  It hurts to wash the dishes.  I haven't slept through the night in days.  But in the scheme of things, we are beyond blessed.  We are safe; we are together; we have medicine and clean water; we have food to eat.  We were even able to give our children presents, as we celebrate the birth of the Jesus who came to save us from this fallen world, where kids get sick.

Our Christmas

We had a more solitary Christmas than we had intended.  We were able to visit with my parents and sister the last weekend of advent, with plan of my parents coming down to see us on Christmas Day--due to illness we weren't seeing Justin's parents at Christmas, though we did visit with them at Thanksgiving.

The baking was done and the groceries all purchased, but Kate had a fever pop up.  She and Ellie had a cold before, but it seems that she picked up the flu while we were away.  The next day Nate had a fever too.  So Christmas left us in quarantine!

Thankfully the kids didn't feel poorly, despite their fevers.

 
They opened their pajamas on Christmas Eve.

 
We celebrated with gift opening and baked breads in the morning--orange nut, chocolate chip cranberry, and cinnamon rolls (from a recipe that a fellow teacher gave me when I was still teaching).

 
A little after noon we had a full turkey dinner, with all the trimmings, with our Christ candle lit.

 
In the afternoon we opened the presents from my in-laws for the children and had left overs for dinner.

It was quiet, but I was so grateful that for our family a case of the flu doesn't lead us to fears of ER visits and hospital stays.  Our children are healthy.  They are here.  With full tummies and presents to boot.  We had a very blessed Christmas!

Sick Day

I was sick for a little over a week.  One of those mornings I was up with Ellie around 4:40.  After her feeding, I didn't have a chance to fall asleep before my turn in the shower (I shower before Justin leaves for work because...well, four children).  After that I tried to lie down, but Ellie got up again.  I finally got her back to sleep.  Then the big kids were up.  I got them breakfast and tried to lie on the couch.  Three munchkins are not quiet, even when they thought they were trying to be.  I gave up, but Kate did have the school books out when I came down.  She evidently had been giving Gabby a spelling test.  Oh dear.

Mamas are not allowed to be sick!

Say What?

Little Miss Gabriella came down with a fever and a bit of a croupy cough. It hasn't bothered her too much, but did keep her sidelined from gymnastics. She sounds a bit off when she speaks and Kate, who loves any figure of speech she can come up with, was quick to point out that Gabby had a 'frog in her throat.'

Gabby found the thought of a slimy amphibian in her throat abhorrent, so the little girl designed a new term to describe her changed voice. A cute and cuddly term. According to Gabriella, "I have a chipmunk in my throat."

Hopefully she'll be as good as new tomorrow and not have shared her chipmunk with anyone. She tells me that the chipmunk has made its way to her left foot. We'll see!

Almost, but Not Quite

I can't find my Mama Handbook. I seem to have mislaid it the week after Kate was born. I'm trying to look up the sleeping clause, you know the one that guarantees after one of the kids keeps you up puking that everyone will sleep in the next morning. It has to be there right between 'Mama's don't get sick,' and 'Only horrible parents have children who ever act out in the grocery store.' Maybe that handbook wasn't always right after all.

Well, we made it to almost two before the little fellow got his first puking bug. He woke me crying. As I sat up and tried to decide if it was one of those cries that will result in him rolling over and going back to sleep or if he had a dream that required a hug, I heard that sound that parents know.

We lost a few hours of sleep and there have been many loads of laundry, but he is holding crackers and water this morning (and watching Veggie Tales to distract him from his thirst because I'm trying to give him water slowly). Hoping it is over and that no one else catches it!

Belly Achin'

The next 3 days are our big moving days.

I went by the new house yesterday to take over some things...I try to take a nice sized load every time I have need to be there. We were getting our modem for our new internet provider delivered yesterday, hence my need to be there. I had unloaded and was putting some things away in the kitchen and in the girl's closet, when Gabby tells me she needs to speak with me.

She tells me her tummy hurts. I tell her to go to the bathroom and I run around gathering shoes and such. She didn't puke. We grabbed my cleaning bucket and she carried it home. She didn't puke. I realized too late that I left the thermostat turned down and hadn't had time to take the trash to the curb for pick up.

Aside from not eating dinner last night she was fine all evening. She didn't puke. Kate told me that Gabby just wanted to watch TV, so she said she was sick. Evidently they had been discussing that recently. The girls went to bed and slept peacefully all night. She didn't puke. This morning, just before the kids were to get up, I was pulling a few things from my bedroom to take with us on our run to the house today, so I was in the garage when I heard the screams.

She puked. Bath. Laundry. Not leaving the house.

Thankfully she has been okay the rest of the day. She didn't eat breakfast, save two pretzels--we were out of saltines, but she did eat some lunch. Hoping that the rest of our move goes more smoothly, but perhaps I shouldn't hold my breath.

When Mom is Sick

I've always stayed fairly healthy. I didn't miss a day of school from fifth grade until I graduated college, save one day after I broke my foot in college. Seriously. I get the normal colds, but nothing that I can't keep going through.

The kiddos had mild colds about two weeks ago. Minor sniffles. Their temperatures reached between 99 and 100 degrees, but the girls didn't slow down at all, and Nate was just slightly slowed, you know to some where near the normal pace of a 15 month old boy, just below turbo speed!

Then I got it. Good stinkin' grief. I was completely knocked out. It was all I could do to make it through our days. I had already planned out our home school week, the folders were ready, so we went ahead, I figured routine was our friend right now. After two nights of barely sleeping, I bought NyQuil. Then I took it...in the afternoon. Wow. I fought all afternoon to stay awake. Usually medicine doesn't effect me too much, but I suppose on top of the lack of sleep it was just too much. By Thursday, I'm starting to feel a bit better, but by mid morning my left eye was stinging. I took out my contact lenses and went about my day. It still burned, and was getting worse. Justin was working late and by the time he got home I was sure something was scratching my eye. He called off classes for the next day, and I went to the doctor because I was sick for the first time in a very long time. Actually, I was taken to the doctor because it felt like the sun was stabbing me in the eye. She told me that I have an eye infection, joy.

I am grateful to be improving slowly, but I have come to the determination that moms need super duper immune systems, kids need to slow down more when they are sick (not be miserable, just want to sit quietly and look at books instead of climb on top of tables while we're all ill), and there really should be substitutes available!

Of Course...

I've been under the weather. All three kiddos had low grade fevers last night, so we stayed home from church. I was starting to feeling icky yesterday, so I put together chicken noodle soup last night so I wouldn't have to cook tonight. Perfect, or so I thought.

I put the soup on the back burner on low after lunch. Then I went and took a nap, played with the baby, and did basically nothing. Then I went to check on our soup. The burner evidently wasn't working. That particular burner had given us trouble a couple of times, but had been working fine. But at that point the soup had been sitting out for more than 2 hours. We had to toss it.

Such is life...

Under the Weather

I've spent the week under the weather, and I don't just mean the tornadoes we had here on Tuesday, which thankfully didn't cause us any trouble. I was really wondering how come I was having such a hard time. I've been more sick than this before. When I was teaching, I would go to work, even if I couldn't talk. So why was it so hard now?

That's when it hit me, aside from the obvious (of having two or three assistants while I taught), was the other fairly obvious thing that had escaped me... Before when I was sick, I would come in, work 8 hours or so, and then go home to a quiet house. I'd likely take a nap, almost certainly put no prep work into dinner, and vegetate all night. At this point none of those three things is an option.

So, despite the fact I've been ill, I've prepared meals and snacks for the munchkins, taught Kate, paid bills, run errands, made butterfly wings, made late night trips to break up squabbles in the girls' room, and so on.

So, while I have the greatest job in the world, being on call 24/7 has made being ill a little more trying. So, it's okay if I have a load of laundry or two that still needs to be folded, I don't bake fresh bread for dinner, and if I had to cut back on the read alouds this week because of my scratchy throat. I forget to give myself permission to be human sometimes.

To Go or Not To Go

...if you're a parent, you've probably had to make this decision. When is your child sick enough to call the doctor's office? I have waited out many a fever over the past four and a half years. I tend not be reactive. Actually I tend not to give fever reducers unless the fever gets fairly high and we're heading towards bed time or the kiddo complains of pain.

This past week Gabby had a rotten fever--104.4 at the highest (and that was with Ibuprofen and Acetaminophen on board). Finally Friday afternoon we decided I should take her in. The nurse practitioner was able to rule out ear infection and step throat, but that means we wasted the trip (and the $150). She's better now, fever is gone and she's her sweet stubborn self again.

So, in her 2 1/2 years she's had 3 sick visits and never has she had anything that could be treated--once was a vaccination reaction and now two viral fevers. I'm thankful she's not a sickly little gal, but it sure is hard to decide when to sit through it and when to go. Part of the reason we went was it would be the weekend and hard to get in without having to go to the ER or UrgentCare. I did one of her sick visits at UrgentCare--I don't ever want to do that again. It was a holiday weekend and we waited 3 hours for a 10 minute visit!

I hope that you and your kiddos stay healthy, that you rarely have to make this choice, and that you're given wisdom when it's time.

In the Night...

I used to wonder why little kids always seem to get sick in the middle of the night. Everyone is tired and the lights have to be turned on making little eyes hurt.

Now as the mother of three, I think instead of a curse, the middle of the night illnesses are actually a blessing. Yes, it makes for a long night and day, but both parents are home, so stripping dirty sheets, running the extra loads of laundry, and washing off the child can all be done at the same time. It also means that the other children are sleeping rather than asking what's for lunch, and are we going to eat yet, and this is gross, when will it be over. Or crawling through it--double yuck!

I am very thankful...but can I take a nap now?

Phew. It was a bit of a tough day here. Gabby has been a bit off today and Kate was, well more Kate than usual. Justin was convinced that I was just tired and thought that she was a bit more difficult because of that, but after an hour home, he agrees she's been on turbo speed!

We finally figured out what was wrong with Miss Gabby. She started running a fever late this afternoon. Hopefully she'll get over this bug quickly without sharing it with the rest of the house, but I feel horribly because we took the girls to deliver Halloween candy to some of Justin's students. Gabby only came in contact with one person, thankfully, but I hope sincerely she didn't share her illness with the department secretary. Perhaps Kate's getting it too and that's why she's a bit off as well.

Justin let me escape for about twenty minutes this evening before their bath, so I got myself I nice warm Mocha and hope to have a quiet evening and two well rested children tomorrow. We'll see how it goes. They do have great immune systems, so it's possible they will be well by tomorrow, but I'm afraid it may be an at home Halloween. I'll have to come up with some activities to make up for the loss of Trick-or Treat if we're stuck inside, but we sure don't want to make someone else sick.

Sleep is for Sissies

And am I ever a sissy.

You know, most people lost an hour of sleep on Saturday night? Not me. We lost seven hours of sleep on Saturday night. Kate has been very sick. I took her to the doctor today—her temperature is 104.6 (with Advil!). She didn’t have strep according to the rapid test, but they’ll be running the two day culture. Evidently in little kids strep can manifest itself like the stomach flu. She’s dehydrated, but thankfully didn’t need an IV.

She could really use some prayers for her little body to heal quickly. She’s not had an appetite at all and we have to push fluids because she's loosing them rapidly. I could use some sleep and patience with all the cleaning, as could Justin. Gabby needs patience as she is having to wait more than she’s used to.