Winter Time

So many things to blog about, like....


First Subject: How we got all dressed up

M and I got dressed up twice in the past week for two pretty fancy dinners for my work. The first was at the country club her in town (it's on a lake and pretty, but not as fancy as those big city country clubs). We had a nice time -- great food, that's for sure. It was nice that M knew some of my friends and even their spouses because he's played poker with them a couple of times. By the way, M looked pretty nice that night :> (see above).


Second Subject: How we've all been sick for the past week.
First, R got it...he woke up in the middle of the night with a "tummy pain" -- he pointed alternately to his stomach and then later to his chest, and then to his stomach. It was quite frustrating at 3:00 in the morning not to really know what was hurting him. Sometimes he would moan in pain and curl up his legs (like when you have a stomach ache) then later he would cough and cough and say that his chest hurt. Hmm...what's a mother to do. Do I give cough medicine that will help the cough, but might hurt his tummy? Do I think that it's his chest that hurts, but not his tummy? But, those moans and that fetal position thing look like a stomach ache. In the end, I gave him no medicine, but sat with him for three hours until he fell back asleep. Then I crawled back into bed for an hour nap before I had to get up. We kept him home from school on Thurs and Friday, then he seemed fine, so we let him go to Cub Scouts (but not hockey because of his cough). Next thing I know, it's Sunday night and he's vomiting. I stay with him for awhile, leave him a big bowl, and go back to bed because I'm soooo tired. On Monday morning, I felt horrible. I've got it too. Fever of 100, nasea, vomiting, and aches and pains. R and I were out for two more days. We were back at school and work on Wed.

On Thursday, M calls me in the morning saying that he feels like he's "been hit by a truck". He called me in the afternoon telling me that T had vomited. I came home a bit early to care for the sickies, walked in the house to M moaning and T throwing up red jello (through his nose) and saying sadly "I'll NEVER be healthy again!" I took care of those two very pale looking, high fever guys Thursday night and went to work on Friday. M felt better on Friday night (or pretended to for my sake) and we went to the big company Holiday party. Saturday was good - all healthy. We went to hockey, a birthday party, and I fixed dinner for the family and Uncle Dan (who was visiting for a great Christmas present for me -- story to come later).

After dinner on Saturday night, I felt LOUSY. The worst I've felt in FOREVER. My stomach hurt, my legs hurt, I was freezing (or hot!), my nose was stuffed up. I felt TERRIBLE. I was up all night with nasea, vomiting, and a general feeling of ickiness. My fever was over 102. I was lethargic and slightly delirious (and example of said delirium was when I was so cold that I tried to take a hot bath to warm myself up, but couldn't get the water hot enough to feel warm at all to me.) Anyway, I was sick in bed all day on Sunday -- couldn't even lift my head up off the bed. I missed work yesterday, sleeping most of the day. Thankfully, Iam MUCH better today. I hope that I'm the last of this cycle. We've sprayed lysol everywhere, changed the sheets, thrown out the toothbrushes and are washing our hands like crazy. Oh yeah, did I mention that this flu is closing down schools around here because of how contageous it is? Crazy nasty thing!


Third Subject: The weather
It is definitely not "way down in the fall" anymore. We are talking full-on winter!! Since the first snow in mid-November, we've gotten 24 inches. Yep, you read that right. That's two feet of snow so far. Some of it melted, but I'd say that we have about and 12-18" base out in our yard right now. Amazing. It's been so cold that it hasn't melted much. It was 12 degrees on my way to work today and 21 degrees on my way home. Last Wednesday, it was 4 degrees.....4. Here's a picture that M took for me to show you some of the beauty of the cold. As R said, we have REAL icecicles mixed with our FAKE icecicles. The really long one there is about 14" long. Cool.