Spring Flu

I had been noticing the bulbs coming up, new leaves starting on the roses, the maple tree starting to bloom.

Warmer weather was starting, and it looked like winter was over, and maybe the groundhog was right after all.

 Then we got whomped with a late winter flu!


Fortunately, we had all gotten the flu shot, so instead of a week of misery, we had a day of misery (or a day where one slept for 20 hours), another day or two of fever, and a lingering cough.

Also, only 5 of 8 got sick, so I'd say it was a win for us getting the shot!

But we did have to cancel classes and a trip to New Jersey.  We're only just starting to get back to normal.

Seven Quick Takes: The Big Sick

1. I feel like I should explain the last month.

I went to NJ to take care of my mom, who was hospitalized because of a variant of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever/ Tick Disease, got bitten by (the same?) tick, and have been sick and unable to do anything for the last month.  I'm feeling much better now and can be on my feet for an hour at a time.


2. I thought I should do "Seven Things I Learned from Being Well and Truly Walloped by a Tick Borne Disease." I thought about that, but everything on the list turned out to be uselessly practical or practically useless.

Me reading blog books while my children hug me and bring me tea

1. Don't get bitten by a tick.
2. Avoid northwest NJ.
3. Have a husband who gets summers off.
4. Have older children who can drive, clean, cook, and shop.
5. Have said husband and children willing to wait on you for a month and then some.
6. Learn that God loves and cares for you.
7. Drink lots of tea.





3. In Which Wendy Discovers She is Not Required to Make Everything Happen

Stuff really does happen!

Meals were cooked and laundry folded!

Kids continued to learn and try new things, like building 3D models out of paper!

I learned to title my quick takes a la Charles Dickens!  I might still be a little loopy.

4. My favorite tea right now is twig kukicha.  I'm not kidding, you have to try this stuff!  It is, literally, roasted tea twigs and a few leaves.  It tastes kind of creamy and nutty and a little sweet.  It's Japanese.  I don't get any money or free tea or anything for posting this, but I've got 6 boxes of it, so I'm ok with that.  For now.

5. And 4 takes was enough to wipe me out.  So I guess that means I'm 4/7 of the way better!

Have a great weekend, more fun with Kelly!

Catching Up

 Welcome back!

We've been off being sick, finishing Lent, and celebrating Easter, but I think we're just about ready to get back in the saddle.  

If we can fit back into the saddle after the amount of chocolate consumed during the Easter octave.

So!  Things you might have missed!

Leena went on her Confirmation retreat!


It was lovely, and she is super excited about her Confirmation which is coming up next week!

Mxyl built a bat box for his Evolutionary Biology class!

This class, which features the Massive Biology Book of Epic Proportions (his description), was chosen when he needed a science to fulfill a graduation requirement.  He picked it because he was interested in the topic.

It's rigorous, even by my Biology major standards!

But he likes it, and he's doing amazingly well, even with the biochemistry bits.

He's the only art major in the class.

Homeschoolers! We take what we like because we like it!

Which makes us sound like pirates, actually. Arrrrrrrrrr!

In other news,  during the month we were down with pneumonia, Spring breezed in with flowery smiles, tossing her green gold hair.  We've been spending as much time as possible outside enjoying the garden!

Anniversary

Grammy and Pop

Today is the first anniversary of my dear MIL's passing, so prayers for our family would be appreciated. We'll be spending the day together.

Thanks to all of you who have been concerned about our pneumonia.  We're all doing much better, and my energy is slowly coming back - very helpful! 

I have been mostly out of commission for the past 3 weeks which is why you haven't seen many substantive posts lately. A lot got cancelled - very Lenten, actually!  Today I worked out a new schedule which has us starting up after Easter, so more fun soon.

The Cold and Fever Within

Last Thursday, all the kids woke up with a sore throat.  I was delighted.

Not that sickness was good news, but that they all were getting it at the same time.

Let me tell you a story:

Waaaaaay back before I had kids, I was an immunology research lab technician. I had a particular talent for cell culture.  I had excellent aseptic technique.

My technique was good enough that I was able to do intracellular culture in human cells in a bacteria lab without a laminar flow hood and my cultures were never contaminated. All of which just means that I know what it takes to protect something from viruses and bacteria.

Back when I had all little kids, my worst nightmare was a stomach bug.  So when a kid got sick, even though I knew it was likely a highly contagious, super tiny norovirus that would be impossible to contain without a hospital's isolation unit, I had to try.

Using absolute best possible practices, maintaining strict isolation and using copious quantities of bleach, I achieved the following: I delayed the spread of the stomach bug so that, 12-24 hours after one child stopped vomiting, the next one started. And we were sick for a solid month. To add insult to injury, the severity tended to increase with each child.

I don't regret trying, because I had to know if it was humanly possible.  It isn't.  The only way to have only one young child get a stomach bug is to have only one young child.

After that, as soon as one kid got started, I encouraged them all to group hug, and give the sick one lots of kisses.  When they're sick, faster is better.

Back to the present day, I was delighted that they were all getting the cold at the same time, and that they were likely to be all over it by Thanksgiving (we can't visit my folks if we have a respiratory infection).  Alas, this took a turn for the feverish, and on Saturday, 6 of 8 had high fevers.  Today, 7 of 8 have low fevers (I got the fever early and am over it - a brilliant move on my part, since I need to make large quantities of tea right now).

I'm not sure what will happen for Thanksgiving, but, on the bright side, no one feels awful, just feverish, stuffy, and sneezy, so we've been having a nice time relaxing together!

Secret Day

We're having a Secret Day. 

I have a cold and I can't talk very loud, so I am whispering to the Zoomlians. Inevitably, they whisper back.  Naturally, this means everything is secret. 

"It's a secret: It's time for breakfast, pass it on."  Everyone lines up at the table, smiling.

"We're having secret packets, better get yours quietly." The Zoomlians quickly plow through their packets.

"Let's go to our secret playground. The secret is that the mulberries are ripe there!"



Oob: You want to know the biggest secret?  It's where my shoes are.

Me: Where?

Oob: I don't know!


One of the nicest things about the Zoomlians is that any indication that I am under the weather launches them into care taking mode. I have had more offers to make me tea or to do something for me than I can count!

Soldiering On

We are soldiering on, despite an attack of the flu.

All the Zoomlians got flu shots in an epic trip to the pediatricians a week ago Monday.  An hour in, the nurse asked (in a tone suggesting I had not really had an appointment) who had scheduled me. 

The whole thing took nearly two hours (and went well past lunch), so we played bored games to pass the time.  These are not to be confused with board games!  Bored games are games to play when you are unavoidably detained with nothing to do, and every parent needs to have a few at the ready.

If I had a Rutabaga is a good one, and so is When I Was a Kid.  We played the Scary Alphabet Game (go around thinking of scary things for each letter such as Angry Aardvarks Assaulting Avaricious Ants), Telephone, and The Twelve Days of Christmas. 

Flu shots are just so random: Of the first 4 kids, two kids had no pain, and two had a "little pinch", but then the fifth kid got a "right in the nerve cluster shrieking fit" shot.  He did not actually shriek, but the last kid saw it and tried to dig his way out of the room.  Not pretty.  And the nurse telling them, despite vital evidence to the contrary, that it didn't hurt at all... well.

That was the Monday.  The actual flu showed up Thursday night, and by Friday, three kids had it.
Two more have popped up with fevers on and off, the most recent today, so we have various kids in all the stages: fever, no fever but still coughing a lot, and not coughing much but still cranky. And waiting.

We've been going forward with the castle and so forth, taking into account who feels like doing what. It was the perfect time to watch The Court Jester!

Update

Well, the hurricane wasn't too bad for us: we didn't lose power, thanks be to God!

The stomach bug, however, has been a lot tougher!

So far we have: Leena fully recovered, Mxyl and I weak and shaky, Zorg, Oob, and the Emperor actively miserable, Choclo may be coming down with it, and Klenda, untouched and obsessively using hand sanitizer.

Last night we hit the dreaded Parental Illness Overlap.  There ought to be a law against having both parents down at the same time, doubly so if there are sick kids in the house.

Prayers greatly appreciated.  At least it's going through quickly!

Ready?

Are we ready for Frankenstorm?  Yep.

We have:

Canned food,
Flashlights,
Batteries,
Camp stove,
Extra blankets,
Firewood,
Water,
Kid throwing up.

Yes!  We have it all!

Because, what's more fun than a natural disaster?

A natural disaster with a stomach bug!

If we don't post for a while, you'll know why.

AIIIEEEEEE!

We're having a nasty sore throat/ bad cold go through the house.  It cancelled a planned visit to my folks last Friday, and today I cancelled Chemistry at the last minute.

I had spent a big chunk of the day telling myself I was just "really tired," but not too tired to teach stoichiometry.  Eventually I realized  that "really tired" plus "weak and dizzy" was a bad combination in a chem lab where you're setting things on fire.

Klenda, the only Zoomlian not affected by the cold, got an unrelated ear infection so severe that it broke her ear drum.

The doctor mentioned this casually during our second panicky visit due to extreme pain.

Doctor:  Mmmmmmm.  Looks like her ear drum burst.

Me: (stunned horrified silence while I process that Klenda will be deaf in one ear)

Doctor (still looking in Klenda's ear): Yep, it burst... So, don't let her swim for 6 weeks.

Me: Six weeks???

Doctor, Wellll, it might not take that long.  But, she can just wear an ear plug when she swims.

Me: You mean ear drums heal?

Maybe my problem is just stress.

I Fink So Doo

Oob (upon waking up with a cold): I fink my dose is on backwards!

Epic

We gave Klenda Epic Mickey for her birthday.

We are big fans of the old comic strips, "Mickey Vs. the Phantom Blot," and "Mickey on Sky Island" being our favorites, so we were so excited to see this come out.

It was fantastic! But after half an hour, Choclo was sick of it.

Literally.

After we had cleaned up the couch and gotten him packed off to bed, Klenda turned out to be sick, too. In fact, Zorg and Mxyl also weren't feeling too well.

We had gotten hit with an epic stomach bug!

Or had we?

Mxyl figured it out first: it was the game that was making us sick!

A quick Google search confirmed that this was not an isolated problem. Ugh!

It turns out that you can condition yourself out of it, but so far, we haven't had the guts to try.

Mostly Better

The score is:
Mxyl, Klenda and Zorg have cleared the fever! They all are in various stages of voice lost, but I'll take "Silent Night" over "Random Fever Bizarreness."

Leena and Choclo still have the fever, but are happy with ibuprofen and a blessedly long Busytown Mysteries DVD.

Oob... I just can't tell. I can't get an accurate reading on the thermometer, possibly because he finds the instruction "put it under your tongue" quite hilarious.

He seems chipper enough. On the other hand, he felt warm to me this morning.

I told him, "I think you have a fever."

He looked at me, then at himself and answered quizzically, "I don't see any fevers on me!"

What We've Been Up To, Part 1

Sorry for the long silence. Most recently, we performed the hitherto unguessable feat of all six Zoomlians getting sick on the same day. Fortunately, that day was last Friday, and three have recovered so far, so I think we've missed having a Green Christmas, this year.

Will they all be well and the house decontaminated for a visit from my folks on Thursday?

I think we can. I think we can. I think we can. I think we can.

The good news is that it is not a stomach bug, just a fever.

Klenda has fully recovered from her sprain. She was even well enough to do her horseback riding lesson the Saturday after her spill.

Of course, she missed this week because of the fever...

The riding lessons are her Christmas present from Grammy. When Grammy asked her if she wanted lessons even if it meant she wouldn't get many other presents, she answered that they would be better than a million other presents!

She's one happy horse loving girl!

Surprise Benefits

It's Math U Feed!

A surprise benefit of a flock of birds in the house has been Choclo's interest in counting, adding and subtracting parakeets.

If I am feeding 3 parakeets and 2 more come along, how many parakeets are there?

A surprise benefit of having 5 kids really sick at the same time has been having 6 kids willing to watch Blue's Big Musical Movie... Which lasted long enough for me to file that entire overgrown pile of home school papers you see in the background!

Swine Flu Update

We are moving along: 6 kids have it so far, Leena is recovered and Klenda is nearly so. It definitely is hitting Oob and Choclo harder than the bigger Zoomlians. The Emperor and I are waiting for our turn.

A friend suggested that we might not get it. At this point, I would rather get it in the mild form the kids have and know that I am then immune to it. I could then also know that I am non contagious when co-op starts up next week...

Best Laid Plans

So this was it: we were going to start up for real this week with our First Day of No School followed by the plunge into US history!

And then, last Thursday night, we got a stomach bug. Not bad as these things go, but Choclo was ill for three days. Then he was fine and, by Sunday afternoon, we (OK, I) started to think maybe it was just something he ate... WHAM! The other seven of us got it within 24 hours.

We are all fine by today, so, not too bad, but not the right way to start off the school year, either!

We've decided to construct our time lines this week, and do our First Day of No School tomorrow or Friday. We're sort of using the time to work up an appetite for the history project (and weed the garden/clean the furnace filters/paint the border in the girls' room, you know, all the projects we thought we'd get to over the summer). Maybe that's not such a bad plan, after all!

Especially since I retain the idea (from my youth) that any school done before Labor day is sort of cheating, anyway!

Various Updates

I am mostly recovered from being clobbered with the stomach bug. Not too bad, it was really only 24 hours and I got to read The Count of Monte Cristo. That was fun enough that I felt slightly guilty for lying about for that long. I also got started thinking about all the planning I needed to do for February.

I am sorry to say that I usually blog my plans as I do them which is fairly useless if you are reading this to get ideas for actual events. In an effort to be more helpful, I am going to blog lists of possibilities I am considering for St. Valentine's Day, Mardi Gras, and Lent.

In case you have been missing your daily Oob/fasion/hair tonic report: Saturday it was ramen noodles and I wish I had a picture for you. Oob with curly noodle hair...

Today it was a honey/ketchup/ranch dressing mixture. The Emperor washed Oob's hair immediately and then combed it into shocking respectability. That will teach him! Although I'm not sure what it will teach to whom.

Sick Stats

Ah, yes, it's that time of year again. To which I say, "HA!!! WE DIDN"T HAVE A STOMACH BUG ON CHRISTMAS!!!"

Current stats: 4 out of 8 Zoomlians have it with 3 of 8 already feeling fine, thank you.

It started with Oob on Monday and I hoped against hope that it was just a batch of bad bologna.
It wasn't.

Which eventually brings me to today when the kids came racing up the stairs shouting that Klenda was throwing up (in the only carpeted space in the house) and I was delighted.

No, not the Klenda was throwing up, but that she definitely had it and would be over it in a few hours. This is a pretty fast moving bug.

I've tried keeping kids quarantined and sanitizing every surface in the house. I had enough microbiology to know that wouldn't work. Working in the lab, I understand what aseptic technique is and how fruitless it would be to try to replicate it under actual home conditions. But then I had kids and I hated to see them sick, so I just had to try.

It didn't work. And it spread out the agony over a solid month with each kid falling victim 5 days after the last kid got better (and renewing the viral load...).

So now, when the first kid gets it, they stay in bed and watch videos and read comics all day with their brothers and sisters. They get sick quickly and we can decontaminate the house and move on!

Ironically, one of the main reasons I would like to get this one over with is to get the house decontaminated so my folks and sister can come visit in mid February...and have the Christmas we postponed due to other health problems.

Arrgh! We delayed Christmas and got a delayed stomach bug!

Fifth Down

I was making pies with Leena, the Kid of the Week. That means she gets to plan all the weeks meals and help make them. She thought we really ought to have apple pie for breakfast, so we were working on it.

Choclo wandered into the kitchen, "Diaper change, please?"

"OK, honey, in a minute." We finished mixing the spices in, dumped the apples into the crust and put on the top crust.

"Choclo?" He was lying face down in the middle of the kitchen, snoring.

I really wanted to take a picture, but just didn't have the heart to leave him there. Instead, I carried him upstairs and changed his diaper. He actually woke up in the middle to give me a chipper, "Hi, Mommy." And he was out again.

By the time we got him up for dinner, the fever had hit. Not too bad, controllable with ibuprofen. He'll have a happy truck video day tomorrow and probably be fine the next day. The first 4 kids have recovered and the grown ups only had a mild case. This just leaves Leena... Waiting for the 6th shoe to drop...