Feb 5, 2013

Sick day are not all bad.
Really.
On Sunday we made it to church, about 15 minutes late. Jake had been in meetings all morning and showed up right on time to help me get the kids in the car.  Problem was, they were not ready.  Almost.  Did I mention that church is not until one in the afternoon.  I had no excuse that we were not all ready, except that I wasn't feeling well, and  I kept having to lay down.  He helped me finish getting everyone ready and we headed to church.  But I still was feeling faint and sick.  I nearly passed out towards the end of fast and testimony meeting, only to open my eyes when I heard Jake's voice over the pulpit.  He was saying the closing prayer, I didn't know, and luckily while I was almost completely out of it, none of our children escaped, followed him up there and embarrassed us (made a hilarious family memory).  Kate had been coughing too, so we just all headed home cutting church short.

 It was Super Bowl Sunday.  And the strangest Super Bowl "party" we've ever had.  For one, we had just planned to watch with our little family.  We had some red balloons, told the kid to get red clothes on, made sloppy joes and set out some chips.  The game started.  The kids were ill impressed about what the "party" was about, and I was asleep on the couch within minutes.  I woke up for a moment during the half time show.  Then slept and slept despite the kids all around until sometime around 9pm,.  When I woke up Jake informed me I had slept through the whole game, the 49ers lost and all the kids were asleep in bed.  Yes a strange Super Bowl for me for sure.
Since I had just slept the entire day, I wasn't so tired and started doing the laundry in the living room and cleaning up the kitchen from dinner.  Jake went to bed not feeling super.

 Around 11pm a little boy crying about "choking up everywhere" came crying into the living room.  Sure enough he then puked all over the kitchen floor (thank you son for not puking on the new carpet) and I found he had puked in his bed as well.  I cleaned him up gave him to fever reducer as he was running 102, then laid out a sheet, towel, pillow and bowl on the living room floor and set him up with Thomas the Train.  Before the cartoon was over, a small 5 year old came out coughing and coughing and asking for a bowl to puke in.  I set her up aside her brother.  Blankets, towels, pillow and bowl.  She watched a cartoon of her choice next. Then I turned off the lights and told them to go to sleep  right on the living room beds where they were if they liked, while I finished the folding laundry in the low light beside them.  My kids love any reason to sleep somewhere other than their beds.  Usually when the kids are sick we let them sleep on our bedroom floor, and they are always asking to.
  Of course they just tossed and turned.  And coughed, and coughed and woke each other up.  So then I turned some Pandora lullybye's on on my computer. And within ten minutes they had both fallen asleep.  I kept working and watching over them with the music in the background for about an hour before I fell asleep myself on the couch near them.
I hate when my kids are sick.  But there was a peacefulness I felt watching over them to some soft music in the low light into the early hours of the morning.

Monday brought some very sleepy kids.  Kate didn't wake up until almost one in the afternoon.  Jake and I were starting to become very concerned about her, but didn't want to wake her.  Her tummy has not been doing very well lately either so we were concerned about dehydration and complication from the flu- and then she woke up and seemed to be back to her mostly happy self.  Fever reducer, chicken noodle soup and 7 up and we made it through the day just hanging out.  We spent the evening listening to Disney songs and voting thumbs up or down for if they were good or not (the kids liked the pandora from the night before)

Tuesday the kids seemed almost better. no fevers, just some coughing.  Jake and I were both feeling the bug a bit.  Marianne still remained healthy and a delight even though she is cutting three teeth and is still missing her babies (which I have literally looked for for ten hours or more and gone to 6 stores looking for a replacement).  We spent the afternoon playing computer games, taking naps, doing puzzles and even happily helping me with some chores.  Kate missed school for the 2nd day, and it was fun to have everyone all home together, even if we were a little sick.  The kids still didn't really want to eat but we all had a good laugh when M (who happened to be wearing animal print) climbed under the table and started growling and chewing on our toes during dinner.  The we cuddled up together on the couch and watched "Enchanted" as a family then turned the kids to bed.

As we got over the illness fairly quickly, these last few sick days were not so bad.
Having an excuse to just hang out with my kids, give them extra cuddling,  and be happy enough when we get nothing done, yes a few short sick days have a silver lining.