Having sick kids is no fun. Being sick yourself is awful. Add them all together and it culminates into something quite terrible. Last week was what I’m sure we’ll refer to as ‘The Great Flu of 2012’. The kids were home from school Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. They somehow managed to go on Friday, only to be struck down again on Saturday with the same ailments. As if that wasn’t terrible enough, Dan and I contracted the same sickness (as you would expect) and had the amazingly fun task of taking care of sick kids while being ill ourselves.
The week flowed in a haze. My nights of getting up with each kid when they needed more medicine, when they felt like they were going to puke and getting up early every day when they felt too terrible to go back to sleep reminded me of their younger years. Not the fun, adorable part of their younger years. You know, when they would giggle in their deep belly laughs or smile at me with their giant chipmunk cheekers.
No, it reminded me of the horrible sleep deprived nights and days I spent in a zombie like state the first year of Gerrit’s life. I felt bad, looked worse and my house became a disaster. Routine and regiment went out the door. No laundry done, no dinner made. It was an accomplishment just remembering to call the school and notify them that Emma & Gerrit wouldn’t be there each day.
Ironically enough, I made it through 2 sentences of this post before getting a call from Emma that she needed to come home from school again today. ~sigh~ 1.5 hours she lasted before she felt too sick to stay. Well, at least we tried. She collected her work for the day and we’ll add it to the stack.
Speaking of the massive stack of school work they’ve missed (and I’m going to try not to use profanity) but HOLY FRIJOLES!!! Are you kidding me?!? They’re in 1st and 2nd grade so you wouldn’t think there’d be that much. Oh, you’d be wrong! Shockingly wrong in fact. Seriously, after we finally catch up again, I’ll be able to confidently tell people they’re half homeschooled. Really…
I’m hoping beyond hope that this bug is finally over and we’re on the upswing of health. We have to be… for the sake of my mental health.
Life, Love and Happiness Weblog 
I totally agree; keeping on the right track is always hard – especially when you’ve got to take care of two kids – but you seem to have a great handle on things:)) Great post and I look forward to sharing more with you:))
Thanks! I feel like we’re getting back on track again. Welcome to my little piece of the world. Thanks for reading and commenting 🙂
WOW!!! You are one tough mama…I think it’s so hard when they have to do so much school work on top of trying to recover from being sick for a long period of time. What happened to just writing in a journal about the experience?! (Half kidding)…Hope you are all on the mend soon.
Thanks Katie. Probably not that tough… I took a lot of naps 😉 I hope we’re all on the mend too!! Dan & I stopped sighing every 5 min so that’s progress.
Hey Chris. Open all the windows today and air out all those sick germs. Hope everyone is feeling better and can enjoy the great weather we are having. Miss you. Let’s do coffee this week