down and out . . . for now

Sunday, the 2nd, my sweet husband started to feel under the weather.  He was burning hot and achy.  It's not uncommon for him to get that way this time of year.  He works at night in the shipping industry, and always ends up sick either before, during, or after Christmas.  He slept in that morning and woke a few hours later his fever having broken and he claimed to feel much better.  Whew!  Dodged a bullet there!

That night, Enos was feeling achy and fevered again, but we hoped with a good night's sleep, he would again feel better in the morning. 

Monday morning dawned with troublemakers #'s 3 & 4 hacking horribly, but acting much like their energetic little selves, so we didn't worry much, except that Enos just couldn't kick whatever he had and I resigned myself to the fact that he was going to be sick and less help than normal while he tried to sleep it off over the next few days (because it turns out he is allergic to calling in sick to work.)

Tuesday morning I realized troublemaker #2 and I had caught whatever the two smaller troublemakers had (which was completely different than what Enos had.)  We were slightly congested, but nothing we couldn't power through, and so we did.

Wednesday morning: husband still sick, troublemakers 2-4 worse, and I felt like death.  I kept troublemaker #2 home from school.  By this point, we were going through Children's Tylenol and Children's Motrin like water.  We lived for when the 3-hour time period was up so that we could all take more medication (except me--I had a 4 hour wait because I'm pregnant and can only take Tylenol, which let me tell you, wasn't cutting it.)

Thursday morning, Enos slept after working all night and woke up six hours later to find me and the kids laying around the house trying not to move.  He announced that he was feeling better, made me call my doctor, and started dosing up the kids again.  My amazing doctor listened to my symptoms (achy, headache, fever, sore throat, chest congestion, difficulty breathing) and called in two prescriptions for me: an antibiotic and cough syrup with codine (both safe for me and the baby.)

Enos went to the pharmacy and came back with my drugs and more of the kids' medicine.  By this point, I hadn't cooked or cleaned in days.  Poor troublemaker #1 was the only one who didn't get sick, and was surviving almost solely on his own--and might I add, he was an angel.

Enos sent me to bed, declaring himself to be on the mend, at 4 pm and took over with the kids.  I slept until 6 am the next morning and woke feeling much better.  As the day wore on, however, it became apparent that I was not completely over whatever I had, and the troublemakers felt the same way I did - better, but by no means healed.  So, we laid around some more, watched movies, napped, and waited until bedtime when we could all pass out again for the night.

Saturday morning was a little better, but about the same as Friday.  The plus side is that by this point whatever Enos had he was over now.

Sunday, I thought we were all coming out of it when the pretty troublemaker (Rora) became extra whiny and irritable.  She spent the evening on Grandma's lap and then passed out for the entire night at home.

Monday morning, all except Rora were feeling better, and with a temperature of 103.8 degrees, I scheduled a doctor's appointment for her.  By the time we got to the office two hours later, Rora was bouncing around and I was starting to question whether the fever was just a fluke.  Turns out, Rora has strep throat, but luckily no ear infections, RSV, or pneumonia, like the last three winters.

All of this is leading somewhere, I promise.

With all that going on, I haven't posted in over a week.  Sorry.  I spent last week sick (obviously,) and this week trying to catch up on the housework I didn't do last week.  After an entire week of the dishes going uncleaned, the floors unvacuumed, the house undusted, and the laundry undone, I'm digging my way out slowly.

When I finally got up to doing dishes again, I put a load in the dishwasher, ran the cycle, and then opened the door to reveal still-dirty dishes (great.)  So, I went to the store, picked up a bunch of dishwasher cleaning products, since I was fairly sure that was the problem (we had extremely hard water where we live,) and ran it through the dishwasher.  Most of the way through the cleaning cycle, water starts spraying out of the door (ahhh!)

Last night, I pulled apart the dishwasher, cleaned 6-years-worth of limescale out of the filter, ran two more cleaning cycles through, and then finally washed a load of dishes, which came out clean!!  (Picture me with a very happy face and my chest puffed out with pride.)

Today, with kids all healthy, dishwasher fixed, and most of the rooms in the house at least basically cleaned, I am focusing on the laundry.  The regular clothes are not in too bad a shape, but after last week's illnesses, I'm also washing all the sheets, pillowcases, blankets, luv sac covers, more blankets, etc.  It all needs to be cleaned, and then I'll feel much better.

So, after a very long explanation (excuse,) I am here to tell you that I will begin sewing, cooking, crafting again this weekend, and should have something more interesting to show you again on Monday!