what's up weekly. (Break? Week Edition.)

Hello, one and all.  You don't know it, but you're incredibly lucky to be hearing from me today, since this week has threatened to be the end of me.  I could be dead right now.  Let me explain, but first get cozy and go take some zinc so you don't catch what we've got.  Yes, I'm talking about catching it through the screen.  Take every precaution.

So, remember how I told you Atticus was sick last week? Fever and fatigue over the course of a few days.  He was the only one, and was feeling much better all day Friday, so we went ahead with Ophelia's birthday party on Saturday.  Everyone was feeling great and ready to party.

"Oey, how old are you?"  "TYOO!"

Don't let the puzzled look fool you - she knew immediately that she was supposed to try to blow out the candle.  She wasn't successful, but she gave it her best.

She liked the cake and ice cream alright, but halfway through she started begging for what she wanted most of all - "Nap? Nap?"  We had to hold her off so she could open her presents.

Feeding the baby doll she got...

...until she decided to put the bottle to better use.  It was as easy as taking, well, candy? from a baby.

How on earth is this related, you ask?  Well, Atticus also got a few gifts from family that didn't get to see him on his birthday, and rifle hooks were one of those gifts.  He asked Todd to put them up right away, and all the boys can now display their airsoft guns.

The next morning, Penelope woke up with a fever, which was a huge bummer because it was the Christmas feast at church and she was going to play piano in the talent show.  I ended up being glad I stayed home with her, because my stomach ended up being really upset.  We watched Victorian Farm Christmas (which she slept through), and then we started The Half-Blood Prince, but she was so tired she asked to turn it off so she could go to bed.  Clearly she was not well.

Then on Monday, Lolo woke up with a fever and the barfs, so the girls held down the couch all day. 

 

The next day, Penelope was up and around, though still tired, but Lolo was still sick, so Finneas joined her on the couch when he woke up feeling awful.  Lolo's fever spiked pretty high (not sure how high; I don't think I've used a thermometer since Atticus was a baby - you can just tell) and she started talking incoherently about medicine leaking all out of Santa's sleigh... super weird.  Luckily some Tylenol took the fever down and she was able to eat before bed.

The next day, Lolo and Finneas were still down, and this time Rocco joined them.  But then we ran out of room on the couch, so we had to bring a mattress up from downstairs to put on the floor so everyone had a place to go.  

Hey now.  Before you judge the Budweiser blanket.  It is the coziest, warmest throw blanket we own and everyone fights over it.

I had been feeling increasingly worn out through the week, and this was around the time that I started to feel a little at the end of my tether with everything.  So it didn't help when I woke up yesterday feeling terrible, and to top it all off, Todd woke up in the middle of the night with a raging migraine and a bunch of congestion.  And Finneas, who is always the kid who fights bugs the longest, was still sick as well.

I stopped having the energy to photograph things somewhere in there, so here is a photo of Atticus, who has been well and lively all week, sawing a board into a rifle while the rest of us wasted away.  Juni is picking up wood scraps and keeping him company.

So here we are.  I suppose I can say we are through our first week of break, but it begs the question: "break, by what standard?"  It has been exhausting and increasingly overwhelming as the week has gone on.  I did start shooting the big guns at myself yesterday - I got on the treadmill to try to cook out the fever, then I started nebulizing saline and drinking fire cider and taking homeopathics.  It's hard to know if it's actually working or not, since this bug seems to kind of come and go and come and go, but it was weird - the first ten minutes or so I was on the treadmill, I felt like I was dying.  My sinuses were burning, my throat was burning, I couldn't breathe.  And then all of a sudden my sinuses started releasing everything (which was a lot), and I got a second wind, and I have been feeling so much better since then.  The nebulizing seems to be working the stuff out of my chest, and the fire cider is helping my throat.  Hopefully, this is a genuine turnaround and not just a trick, but we'll see.  I am cautiously optimistic.

So, anyway.  All that to say, the week ended up looking very different than I'd hoped.  I had wanted to clean and organize the basement and get a jumpstart on Christmas cooking.  Instead, I have posted way too many stories on Instagram and finished reading an entire book, and most of a second one.  I guess that will make my end-of-year book list look a little less anemic, which is good because this has been a pretty dismal year, reading-wise.  So silver linings for sure.  But gosh - I'm hoping next week everyone is healthy!  (Pray for us - the little girls haven't gotten it yet, and I feel like I need to be bracing myself.)

So today is... today.  I'm not sure what it will hold.  Maybe some Christmas food and present prep if I feel well and if the kids don't need me.  More of the same if I don't, or they do.  Lord, beer me the strength.