Okay, who stole my kids' immune systems?

I mean, come on, seriously, enough is enough.
Aaric has a sore throat, headache, fever, and stomach ache. Sounds like strep to me.

My kids used to never get sick. Then along comes Xander and his multitude of illnesses (1 resp infection, 4 UTIs, and one staph infection all in 11 months) and all hell breaks loose and all 3 kids are constantly sick.

And Mikayla has been cranky* so I'm betting she's coming down with it, too.


See the LOLCat below. That's me again tonight. I was trying to come up with a great simile to use there, but couldn't. So I googled. The few that I found were a bit too odd or obscure. One was "as cranky as bad hummus." I have a feeling that some of my readers may be unsure of what hummus is, or if they do, they wouldn't believe that I DO know what it is and eat it often. The kind I buy even has tiny little diced veggies mixed in. Seriously! I do eat it. With some yummy flatbread. Anyway, the other one was "as cranky as a cat who has suddenly seen a Doberman" and to me, that's more "freaked out" than "cranky" but then, what do I know, I don't own cats or Dobermans. The point is, I suck at similes at midnight.

Xander's urology appointment is tomorrow (make that today...) and I get to go talk the nice man into operating on my 1 year old. If I get my way, he'll have a minor, 20 minute outpatient endoscopic procedure. Hopefully he can get that, and not open surgery. But I'll be discussing the options with the urologist in the morning. With Aaric in tow, and hopefully not Mikayla, too.

Should have seen that one coming.

This stomach bug laughs at me and my silly notions that it has moved on along. It is like the little kid with a cookie, gigging as she hides and eats it (or carefully tiptoeing past Mom, with the cookies hidden in her dress). It gets a BIG laugh out of me rationalizing another round of bathroom issues with "something they ate." And then, it waits until my guard is fully down... waiting for that perfect moment.
Like, when the tired toddler cries, "mama" and I pull him up into my lap and he latches on and nurses contendedly, slowly dozing off, and the world all seems normal again, and then suddenly I'm covered in about 5 gallons of vomit. And Mean Mister Stomach Bug thinks it's totally awesome that he pulled one over on me yet again. I hate that bug.

And my kids are very confused at my calling it a bug. But see, if it's a virus, it's a very rapidly mutating one that the CDC is going to want to study, I think. And there's no fever so it's not following any of the rules for viruses or bacterial infections. I mean, do we have a raging case of E. Coli or what? I don't know what the deal is.

What I do know, is that I've never been one to go all crazy with the Clorox during times of illness. I clean up the messes with my typical cleaning products, toss the fabric stuff in the washer on hot, and go on with life. This time, though, Kenna is coming over and we're sanitizing this place. Mean Mister Stomach Bug will be evicted.

Plague '08 Day 27

Aaric - fine, with the exception of 23 pages of makeup work to finish... front and back*
Mikayla - fine, though still angry that her bangs have the gall to exist**
Xander - threw up 4 times, nursed, threw up twice, sleeping now
Me - typing one handed because if I move him, he'll wake up and probably throw up on me again. 11:15 and still haven't eaten dinner and leftover pizza doesn't sound good.

*I will chronicle some of the worksheet hilarity once I have access to my other arm.
**I should probably hide my razor.

4 more weeks. Will we survive? Kenna predicts that soon, their heads will spin and things will explode from their chests. I vowed to take pictures. Stay tuned.

It can.

Tell me I didn't really ask if it could get any worse. I'm imagining that, right?
I suppose it's not worse but it's definitely not better.
Mikayla was fine for all of Saturday and Sunday, but as of Monday morning, had a pretty bad cough, that includes her struggling to breath toward the end. That one is starting to concern me. It was pretty infrequent Monday but she's sleeping a few feet away from me now and is coughing quite a lot and can barely breathe due to congestion.

Aaric, well we'll just say that there are certain conditions which require one to stay near a restroom, and which would scar a kid for life if he had this condition at school. And therefore he has missed 2 more days of school. He's up to 12, now. And I had high hopes of him returning tomorrow. But then I ordered pizza. And either he really does have a stomach bug (the other problem is so mild, I was doubting that it was actual illness, maybe just something he ate) that didn't appreciate rich, greasy pizza, or he ate too much, or it just didn't sit quite right either. Because it came back up, after much groaning about a tummy ache which I was SURE was just an excuse to get out of finishing his spelling words.

Xander is fine. I mean, he keeps calling this stupid toy horse that the kids have, a doggie, and insists that it says "woof, woof" and then bonked me on the head with it, which left a bruise that hurts pretty bad, but he's not sick. The little turkey also crawled up into bed last night, after Aaric and Mikayla were finally both quiet and falling asleep, and he yells out "AAHCK! KAHLA! AAHCK! KAHLA!" Heaven forbid they dare to sleep when he still wants to play.

Oh, he does have a new molar. That's tooth #9 and I can feel that 10, 11, and 12 aren't far behind. In other tooth news, Aaric's 2nd tooth should dislodge itself soon, and a few more won't be too far behind. It's teething season around here.

I'm still healthy, but I'm just certain that one day soon, I'll wake up and all the plagues that have hit my house in the past month will have descended upon me, and I'll be half dead. And the kids will miss a few more days of school because I won't be able to move. And then they'll both fail K and 1st grades this year due to too many absences.

Can anything else go wrong? Don't answer that.

Rumor has it that this year's flu strain likes to go into hiding for a few days and then emerge once more. Which could explain why last night, Mikayla was sick again. She never even hit 100%.

We went to visit Michael last weekend, which was nice, but when we got home, it was 60 degrees in our house. I had to get the friendly maintenance men to come make the heater work.

I sent Aaric outside to run down the the neighbor's house for me, and he discovered that his bike is missing. During the height of Aaric's flu, someone came by with his bike and said they'd found it in their front yard, and since he'd been sick, I knew someone had to have taken it. And now it's gone again. I am not happy. You'd think the big "AARIC" tag on the back would be a deterrent. Stick to stealing things that aren't so obvious, you know? We've walked all over the neighborhood and could not find it.

Xander broke my ear last night. I didn't know that was possible. To be fair, I haven't had any xrays, so I don't have proof that it's broken. But we were all in bed watching a movie, and Xander lifted his head and then slammed it down right on top of my ear. I'm not entirely certain that I've ever been in that much pain. And I've given birth to 3 children.
Then I forgot about it until I made a phone call and the pressure of the phone against my head reminded me. Then this morning it itched and I touched it and thought I'd die. My skull right behind my ear is sore, too. I think I have an ear fracture.

I just can't wait to see how much fun the next 5 weeks will be! The past 7 have been pretty darn bad.

This is the flu that never ends

It just goes on and on my friends!

Aaric still has a fever and a cough.
Mikayla is just finishing up day 2, so she's of course still sick as a dog. Neither of them were ever as bad as it was last year, though.
Xander got it today, but thankfully, no vomiting from him.

Because Mikayla also had some random stomach bug early last week, she's now missed 5 days of school this month, and Aaric has missed 4. I'm pretty sure he'll be home tomorrow, and I know she will be. And they'll miss Friday and Tuesday since we'll be in GA, so by next week their counts will be up to at least 7 and 8 days.

To top it all off, I had a flat tire today. I'm so glad that I got roadside assistance coverage in my insurance plan. Sure, I've changed a tire before and could theoretically do it again. But it's just not at the top of my list of fun things to do when I'm home alone with 3 sick kids, so I was glad that someone else came to do it for me.

Now, if only I could get "housecleaner" added to my renters insurance, I'd be in heaven.

My Morning Thus Far

1. I have no phone. See, I had Xander asleep in my arms and was talking on my cell phone, and it was plugged in to the charger. I decided to put him down and when I tried to do so, the charger jerked out of the phone. I finished my call with it unplugged and thought nothing of it. Then I looked at the charger. Part of the charger remained inside of my phone, and what's left got bent. This is bad. At least it didn't go into the toilet though.

2. I think Mikayla has the flu now. She already missed most of last week. I'm shooting for the record of having the kids who miss the most days of school. I told Aaric that I think she has what he had. He says, "Oh, DNA?" "Uh, no, germs are not DNA." "No, I mean, ADD!" "NO! The FLU!" Anyway, her tummy hurts and she's coughing a lot and has a little fever. She better not start puking any time soon, because I have to go get my phone fixed.
**update, I took my time and now, 3.5 hours later, I have not left for Alltel yet, and she's throwing up. Big fun. And I thought Aaric was better, just with a lingering cough, but no, he's still 100 degrees. Great.

3. I have my very own, 2.5 foot tall personal toilet paper tearer-offer. Oh, he's a happy helper alright. He actually tears off very appropriate amounts, unlike Mikayla who was always fond of pulling half the roll off.

4. Tomorrow, Michael starts week 6 of OCS. He's been doing pretty well. He seems to take great joy in calling me on Saturdays while he's eating lunch at Moe's. It's so unfair. I want Moe's. So that's where I'll be for lunch on Saturday, woohoo! Oh, yeah, and we'll get to see Michael. While we eat Moe's.

I'm kidding, I'm kidding! I mean, we will eat Moe's, but I am much more looking forward to seeing him than getting Moe's.

The Three

It's late, I'm tired, I really need to go to sleep, but here I sit procrastinating. But I shall keep it brief.
Aaric is currently not diagnosable with ADD. This doesn't mean that he definitely does not have it, but for now, the does not meet the requirements for diagnosis. I'm researching some other possible causes, but mainly just want to get him through this year. This may or may not involve switching teachers, and will hopefully involve getting his school counselor involved with giving him some tools to learn to focus better.

He does have the flu, though. So far, it does not seem as bad as last year. Last year is when, I'm sorry, he was the stereotypical sick male. He really was pretty sick. I had to carry him to the bathroom once because his legs were too sore and weak to walk. The most memorable moment though, was when he was crying for several minutes and when I finally checked on him, the problem was that he couldn't reach his cup. It was only about a foot out of his reach and he wasn't even leaning over trying to get it. He just couldn't be bothered with moving.
Today was day 3 and he had improved a lot by evening. He missed out on his Boy Scouts Blue and Gold banquet.

In other news, to the left, you see a picture of Mikayla. Click on it to see more pictures detailing the new 'do. When I trimmed the bangs, I did a nice, normal, "front row" of bangs. A straight line of bangs. She pulled forward a whole triangular shaped section of hair, and chopped it all off. About half is an inch below the hairline, and then the next section back ends right at the hairline. Michael asked if I was going to get it fixed. The only way to fix inch long bangs is to get a pixie cut and I have a feeling he would not appreciate that.

She was not amused with the picture taking.
And if you're thinking, "Well, I can see that picture there, I won't bother clicking to see more of the same" let me just tell you that there are also a couple new pictures of Xander and one very artsy one that is of Aaric, and by Aaric. You're intrigued, aren't you? Go look.

Fine, I'll say something about Xander, too. Go look at this tea ball. Now keep in mind that it's about the size of a ping pong ball. Now imagine a 1 year old with half of it stuck inside his mouth. That was Xander today. There was vomit, and blood, and crying, and I was moments from calling 911 when I was finally able to get it out. He somehow got it in, with the outside of it facing out so that it just looked like there was a silver ball in his mouth, and stuck behind his teeth and he almost couldn't open wide enough to get it out. It ranked right up there as one of the scariest moments of my life, but I didn't panic while I was getting it out. I just freaked out afterwards. He's okay now, and the blood was just from the inside of his lip which somehow lost some skin.

Time to buy more cabinet locks to install in the drawers. THAT evil thing is in the trash now, though.