Absence

OK, I admit, I've been gone for a while. Let me explain.

First off, we've been battling illness in this house for....all winter? It started two weeks ago with Stellan. He started throwing up on Wednesday night and it continued for a week. He threw up off and on for the entire week. Yuck! Great kid though, he still acted as if he was just fine; just took a few minutes to throw up and then was back to playing. In between the puke periods he got a runny nose for a couple of days. Interestingly enough, that was more upsetting to him than throwing up any food that passed his lips. He woke up every hour asking me to wipe his nose. I eventually got so tired of getting up that I told him if he called me again I would use the dreaded aspirator. That bought me a few extra hours of uninterrupted sleep.

During the whole episode Stellan barely ate anything. Who can blame him? As soon as he ate he threw up. He was able to drink so I was satisfied. Now I can't keep enough food in front of him. I knew he'd catch up.

While Stellan was throwing up Jameson started with a cough. One night it got so bad that he ended up puking too. Sheesh. I had so many loads of laundry. To top it off, my dryer quit working. Murphy's Law? It took a while to get it fixed but, now that it has a new motor it works just great!

Jameson continued with his cough which wonderfully interrupted our sleep even more. I was a bit bitter about this since I figure I have about two good months of sleep left. James was wonderful and got up as much as he could. Either way, we made it through.

Lo and behold, James started getting sick last Friday, early in the morning. I woke to hear him throwing up in the bathroom. Lovely wake up calls I've been having lately. I figured it was going to be a long day so I planned on taking Stellan grocery shopping while Jameson was in school and then the three of us would head to Uptown Playaround. It worked out well until Stellan started whining and getting on my last nerve at Uptown Playaround. He was given one more chance and blew it. We headed home. We were home long enough for me to put on a pot of chicken soup and put the kids down for a nap/rest. I too laid down for a rest and then found out I was not feeling so well either. Now both James and I were laid out with the flu. I can honestly say this was the first time I missed "home", just for a second. I really wished there was someone we could pass the kids to so James and I could focus on ourselves and get better. Alas, there was no one. I could have called a friend but all of them have kids and I didn't think it was fair to pass the germs along to everyone I knew. Thankfully James was about 14 hours ahead of me so he had recouped enough energy to feed the kids and put them to bed for the night. We both had a long and restless night to say the least.

We were so thankful that our kids were able to self entertain themselves (and watch a lot of tv) so James and I didn't have to get off the sofa much all day Saturday. The kids were great, they just seemed to sense that they had to be on their best behaviour. By Sunday James and I felt much better but not back to 100%. We headed out for a bit to get some fresh air and it seemed to help.

On Monday I was ready to head out to MOPS with the kids. I got half way there and realized I really wasn't up to it, I still wasn't completely better. I turned around, went home, put on a video for the kids and had a nap. Sheesh, the kids were great once again. They're awesome! By Tuesday I was back to "normal" and felt as good as I could for being 7 months pregnant.

Now I can say that we all feel good and we are all able to sleep again. Thank God for small miracles.