Sick, Sick, Sick

I'm baaaack! Can't get rid of me that easily, you know. I seem to have picked up whatever bug my kids have (without the sore throat, fortunately). I refused to come downstairs this morning and left Larry to deal with everything - the hungry kids, the tile guy, the toddler who pooped for the first time in 3 days (sorry, no pictures). Larry solved the hungry-kid dilemma handily, by letting them eat the candy canes they got from Santa last night. Way to go for a healthy breakfast!

Yes, we saw Santa himself yesterday evening. Our church had its annual Christmas pageant and party, and Anna plays in the ensemble, so we all went, even though half of us were sick and looked pathetic. Of course, if I had been a really good mother, I would have remembered to sign up the little kids to be angels and shepherds; but I guess that will have to wait until next year. The little disease-vectors would have coughed through the whole thing, anyway.

I dragged everyone to the library yesterday - I needed to return our way-overdue books before they put out a warrant for my arrest. I did my best to ensure a local croup epidemic by letting the little girls cough and sneeze all over the kids' section of the library. Then, because the tile guy was here (amazing, but true!), we headed out to Pizza Hut for lunch; they coughed and sneezed all over that place, too. I'm nothing if not thorough.

I fell apart sometime mid-afternoon, but pulled myself together enough to dress everyone for the party. I was hoping to be able to stay home with a sick child or two, but they all insisted on going. So I went, too, and had a pretty good time, while the kids scarfed down quantities of cookies and cake. You know, good nutrition doesn't seem to be job one around here lately.

Tile Guy is still here, working on the kitchen. Tomorrow, too. Which presents a problem in terms of food preparation and consumption. I guess we'll just have to get some more candy canes.

And I'm feeling like crap again - I'm going back to bed.

Stomach-Flu-Of-the-Month Club

I'm trying to remember - did one of my friends send me a Stomach-Flu-of-the-Month Club membership for Christmas? If anyone did, it's working. We're dealing with the March selection currently; it is leisurely making its way through all the members of this household. It's fun taking turns sleeping with the dishpan - I'm sure that, as grownups, all my children will look back fondly on this little family tradition of ours. I was stricken late, late Thursday night (around the same time Rachel started throwing up); and would you believe Larry tried to sneak off to work on Friday morning? "Just for an hour," he begged. Yeah, right - do I look stupid? Don't answer that. Obviously, I'm not stupid or I wouldn't have hidden his car keys between bouts of retching. He got me back by managing to fall ill last night just as the baby started vomiting. She was not very happy about it, let me tell you. And neither was I.

I'm not sure why anyone reads this stuff - it's sickening.

Oh, and the virus started with Anna - not that I think she did it on purpose or anything, but she does hate us. She tells me so, repeatedly. Ad nauseum, in fact. See?

I'm tired, or I wouldn't find that so funny. Anyway, just because Larry was in bed all day with the flu, he thinks he shouldn't have to paint the kitchen cabinets tonight as he had promised. I was going to paint them myself and surprise him, but he doesn't like those sort of surprises. Plus, we seem to be in the middle of winter here again and it's too cold to open the windows; so I'm worried I'll kill everyone with paint fumes. The result being, I'm going to wake up tomorrow to the same grungy-looking woodwork in the kitchen. At this rate, we'll be able to sell our house in, oh, 2012. Maybe.

And how about that snow, huh? Wasn't it fun getting out all the shovels and the snowboots and the snowpants again, after washing them and hanging them up in the back of the closet for next year? I had a blast. Really. And now we get another week of mud. That's great, just great. I need to wash the foyer floor every day - that's what I'm here for, isn't it?

You know, I think the tedium (tedia?) of housework is getting to me. I need to shake things up a bit. Maybe I will go paint those cabinets tonight, just for kicks. Who needs sleep? Not me.

Sick, Sick, Sick

That's right, it's been a while - we've been mighty busy the past month or so catching every cold and flu virus available in our geographical area. We hate to miss out on anything. I feel like a nurse on a hospital ward, walking around every evening dispensing decongestants, painkillers, and/or cough medicine to people in various stages of sickness. I've purchased so much Sudafed in the past 2 months that I expect the local narcotics squad to come busting down our door any time now in search of the methamphetamine lab I am obviously supplying. Every once in a while we stagger out to the library, pay all our overdue fines, and stagger back home with a pile of books to last through the next illness. Larry seems to have ducked a lot of it, somehow; I guess it pays to sleep at the office.

Brian lost his first tooth. I mean, really lost it - apparently he swallowed it and didn't even notice it was missing for hours. We had to write a note to the Tooth Fairy requesting his quarter anyway. She (he?) was very understanding about the situation.

Both Rachel and Brian are theoretically learning to swim. I have a feeling that these little-kid swim lessons are simply a way of plucking yet more money from the pockets of hapless, clueless parents such as Larry and me. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Rachel knows how to dance (she wanted me to tell you that). She also knows how to talk nonstop until I want to lock her in a closet just to turn off the sound. It's a good thing little girls look cute.

David got the flu with a particularly vicious sore throat and ingested nothing for 3 days but Jello and cranberry juice. I have a feeling that he will look back fondly on that time as the best days of his youth. Now he is back to his peculiar set of food neuroses that are apparently calculated to drive me over the edge. Good thing he doesn't know that Theo and I found a bug in the snow peas as we were stringing them this afternoon.

Anna vacillates between hating me and being my best friend. Nothing like living on a rollercoaster for the next 6 years.

Theo is having a hard time getting his schoolwork done, what with sitting around reading seed catalogs all the time and letting lettuce seedlings crowd out all the workspace on his desk. Or else he spends his time prepping and cooking dinner. Yup, the teenage years are pretty rough around here (permit me to gloat while I can - we're in for it with Anna - see above).

Who have I left out? Oh, the baby. Susie's been experiencing baby boot camp lately. Scheduled naps, scheduled bedtime, no nursing at night - it only took me 6 kids to figure it out. I told Larry that now that we have what it takes to keep these babies in line, we can have 6 more. Now that I think of it, that may be why he's sleeping at the office.

January Blues

Well, the post-vacation euphoria has worn off, to be replaced by the winter sickness blues. We seem to have 2 versions of the plague moving (slowly) through our house. You know your weekend isn't going to go as planned when you're informed in the middle of your leisurely Saturday morning shower that someone has thrown up outside the bathroom door. I was able to duck that one by staying in the shower until Larry had cleaned up the mess (hey, I had conditioner in my hair, all right?); but I had to handle the next episode, because Larry was hiding in the basement again. On top of it all, the baby is teething; she may also be sick, but we can't tell, as she still doesn't know how to talk.

We're excited because the Verizon guys are coming tomorrow (once we take the QUARANTINE sign off our door and hide it) to install an Internet connection that is faster than, say, 2 horsepower per kilobit, or whatever it is that we have now over our phone line. Actually, these Verizon guys were here a month ago; but it turns out that they are the "inside" guys (as they patiently explained to us), and they can't do their work until the "outside" guys have shown up. Tiny little mix-up on Verizon's part, but I do think we would have gotten faster remedial action if Larry had followed my suggestion and held the inside guys hostage until the work was done. Nobody ever listens to me around here, however.

Larry's been having fun working out the yearly budget, and he's starting to get that wistful look in his eyes - you know, the one that says, "Why couldn't I have married someone with marketable skills instead of a baby factory?" Too late now, sweetie. It doesn't help that our gas bill doubled, and our electric bill increased by 50%. It also doesn't help that our kids insist on eating 3 square meals a day. Spoiled, I tell you.

Our local library is still letting us in, despite our embarrassing book habits. Everytime we go to check out, it turns into a 15-minute ordeal of being reminded of which books are still out, which are overdue, how many are on hold, and haven't we mentioned our 50-book limit on the library card, ma'am? This time I thought I had it well planned out - Theo and Anna both used their own cards, so as not to impinge on my 50-book allotment. We still went over the limit. Each week I walk in there, I expect to see a police officer standing by the circulation desk, handcuffs at the ready. It didn't help last week when I accidentally shushed a librarian who was speaking too loudly near my sleeping baby. I wonder how many people have ever had to tell a librarian to pipe down?

David and Theo have joined a chess club. Anna didn't want to join because you are not allowed to talk while you are playing. In her words, "What's the point?" We may have just hit on the primary reason that the world of chess grand masters is dominated by men. Anyway, David comes home and teaches Rachel (well, he tells her where to move - I don't think she's learning anything). She likes to capture his pieces so she can play with them. They make a nice sound when she jingles them together in the skirt of her dress. I'll bet that isn't allowed at chess tournaments either.

Well, I've rambled long enough - it's time to go see if Susie will let me put her down in her crib. Ah, to sleep, perchance to dream....