what's up weekly. (IIII'm forty! Forty years old!)

Finally! I have a week full of optimism and fun to share, and not just more blog-version transcripts of our medical records.

Last Friday was the third Friday of the month, which is when Todd and the big kids stay up late watching a movie that is not rated for the younger set.  This time they watched Die Hard 3.  I would have stayed up with them (even though I have only seen the first Die Hard; they said the second one wasn't essential to the plot of the third.  Color me shocked), but I was exhausted after the week of pulling through sickness.  So I went to bed early.

I'm just going to add some random, unrelated-to-the-text photos in here.  Our neighbors came over to ask if we'd like to share their huge garden with them this year!  Uh, yeah.  I think we would.

I spent Saturday morning trying to play a little bit of catch up on the house: bleaching the bathrooms, cleaning my room, washing some walls, cleaning the couch.  It all looks so much better exactly the same, somehow.  (Explain to me how that works.)

Just chillaxin next to this bag of stuff waiting to go to Goodwill.

In the afternoon, Todd took me downtown to explore some antique stores, which is what I wanted to do for my upcoming birthday.  I was really hoping to find a leaded glass window to hang in the window over our fireplace, but no such luck.  But I did find some cool old books (a fun Eric Sloane hardcover, and some Childcraft books for a steal!) and a hand-carved pair of wooden Dutch shoes for our Saint Nicholas Day festivities.  But the hunt for the leaded glass continues.

Todd got out his guitar and immediately had a rapt audience.

A rapt and roly poly audience.

On Sunday, we all made it to church! Glory hallelujah!  Everyone was feeling better, but there was definitely still a recovery process happening, and the babies just didn't have the patience to sit through service, so I took them out during confession.  (Though we did stay long enough for me to hear Todd give the exhortation, which was nice since I missed his sermon the previous week when I was home with sick kids.)

These babies LOVE playing outside on the deck.

Knox loves to give hugs.  Lalie is not always the easiest to convince.

She tolerates it because she loves him.

Oey still wasn't up to 100% either.  She spent nine days sick, barely getting up off the floor mattresses in the living room and my room, refusing to eat, puking up whatever little bit she did consume.  After she started eating again, it took her about another full week before she was back to her regular self.  That tummy bug hit hard.  So after church on Sunday we brought her home relatively early and got her right down for nap.  

Sunday night we watched The Greatest Showman and had a popcorn party for dinner.

Monday and Tuesday were back to normal, and then on Wednesday Todd took me out to dinner for my birthday (which was the next day).  We went to Jazz for Cajun food and margaritas.  It was awesome.  As usual, we stopped at Walmart before coming home to pick up Pringles for the kids.  It's kind of grown into a date night tradition to bring back Pringles for them.

Yesterday was my birthday.  It was such a good day.  I woke up to discover that Lolo, Callista and Rocco were cooking my breakfast for a surprise breakfast-in-bed!  After the kids had all eaten their own breakfast and the babies were up and changed, everyone wanted to head outside to play.  So I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to just let them play in the nice weather instead of doing school, and I headed to Goodwill to look for a few last-minute accessories for Penelope's Easter outfit.  Then I stopped at Home Depot and got some climbing roses for the yard, and then hit Aldi to pick up ingredients to make tacos for dinner.  (Correction: for the kids to make tacos for dinner.  For my birthday meal I picked tacos, because a) I love tacos, b) everyone else loves tacos, c) everyone else loves tacos so I wouldn't have to hear anyone's sighs over my dinner choices, and d) the kids know how to make them all by themselves!  I got to get a workout in while they cooked dinner.  Happy birthday to me!)

This is the only "40" photo on the camera... better photo impending.

After they all gave me the birthday presents they got me, they piled on for a group hug.  The best way to end a birthday!

I have a feeling that my forties are going to be great.  I really love my life.

what's up weekly. (second verse, same as the first.)

In this week's installment of, "The Laundry Pile," I'm not sure if I'll need to even write much.  It was another week full of sickness and woe, so I may just let the photos do most of the talking.

Last week ended with the little girls all very sick with the stomach flu.  

I went to the library book sale on Friday and found a couple of Beatrix Potter treasuries and the Berenstain Bears treasury for $1 each - cheap sick day entertainment.

Then Rocco caught it.  Then Atticus caught it.  Then Lolo caught it.  Then the babies caught it.  And the little girls all still had it.  Everyone but Todd, Finneas and Penelope stayed home from church on Sunday.  Then on Monday, Penelope got it.

Another one bites the dust.

Another one bites the dust.

Trying to see Spongebob on a tiny screen from their posts.

Not too sick to chat.

After chatting, Lolo conked out at the other end of the mattress.

Musical mattresses.

It looked like the "Bring Out Your Dead" cart in here for a while.

Then Knox started barfing.

It lasted at least two days for everyone.  It lasted nine days for Oey, and nearly that long for Callista.   So far, Todd, Finneas and I have escaped (knock on wood).  Then at the end of the worst of it, we discovered Oey had a new spot of staph infection, so we're back to treating that again.

She stopped barfing and finally got out of bed a couple of days ago, but still wouldn't eat anything.  I was even trying to bribe her after a while ("if you eat one bite of eggs, I will give you an M&M") but she wasn't even interested in the bribe.  She got so skinny and transparent-looking.  She looked like steam, all wispy and gray.

Sunday night, I was feeling pretty exhausted and demoralized, so Todd went out and got some takeout so we could have an at-home date night, and he brought me the prettiest champagne-colored roses.  It worked wonders for girding up to start the week.

Before she got sick, Penelope helped out so much with the extra load.  I was so grateful for her help.

Monday, we tried to do a little school with the kids who were feeling up for it.  Tuesday, I didn't even try, because Eulalie's diaper rash was so bad that she just screamed inconsolably all morning while I held her.  Wednesday was the first day I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel - Oey started eating again, and Penelope, the last holdout, was at least up and around a little bit.

She finally started eating small amounts again on Wednesday.  She is still very thin and pale, and easily tired, and extra emotional.  I think it will take a while yet for her to recover.  But she's definitely on the mend.

Todd and I ducked out for a few hours on Wednesday night to do a little thrifting and grab some dinner that wasn't sick food.  (Finneas, the only kid who never got sick, told me that if he had to eat noodles for one more meal he was going to mutiny.)

And then yesterday it was Thursday already.  Time sure flies when you're having fun.

Trying to get back into the rhythm of reading aloud. 

Wednesday afternoon Family Read Alouds.  The barf bucket was there as a precaution, but was thankfully not necessary, and all the school kids were well enough to be present.  Glory be.

Math time - Life of Fred with Juni and Lissy, and Teaching Textbooks for Lolo.

And to top things off on a weird week, we started the week off with freezing temperatures and snow. 

Lolo and Lalie watching the snow

Knox felt like the weather reflected his poor, sick soul, deduced by the look on his face.

 

Today is supposed to be ninety degrees.  I guess the weather knew I needed some sunshine after all of that.  (And the laundry knew it needed a new excuse for attention, as I was forced to switch out seasonal clothes for all the kids last night and now the laundry is overflowing again.  Le sigh.)

One bright spot of a bunch of down time has been that the kids have gotten a lot of audiobook time.  They're working their way through the Harry Potter books - Finneas finished them, and Rocco is getting close.  Callista and Juni are making their way through the early books.

It's supposed to be sunny and warm today, and so far no one is sick.  Because the forecast is so hot, the pig butcher day we were supposed to participate in today was postponed, so I didn't have much school on the schedule.  I think I will try taking the kids to Walmart to get summer shoes if everyone is feeling up for it.  So it should be a nice change of pace and a nice day - I'm so grateful!

what's up weekly.

I think I've officially decided to rename the blog to, "The Pile of Laundry, With A Few Antecdotes About the People Who Generated, and Now Live Smothered Under, It."  That's all the news seems to entail anymore.

Last week I told you about the raging case of impetigo we had going through the house.  The truly monstrous amount of laundry we produced through all of that was staggering.  I spent three hours on Saturday folding it and putting it away and getting caught up.  We seemed to finally move beyond the worst of it, so laundry maintenance faded back into its usual place for a few days.  But apparently it had gotten used to the attention, loved the coddling and care it received, and begged for an opportunity to shine once more.  The stomach flu seemed more than happy to grant it, and so here I am again, drowning in sheets and towels and blankets and underpants that are demanding my current attention. 

Unfortunately it all started after Taco Night.

Callista started complaining of a stomachache around dinner time, and before bed Oey told me that her tummy felt "busted."  I figured they'd sleep it off, but before Todd and I turned in for the night, Callista came in to tell me she had puked in her bed.  Taco barf on their new bedding and on her bedfellow Juni.  (Juni stayed asleep the entire time I stripped the sheets out from under her, sponge bathed her, and changed her jammies.  She woke up wondering where her other jammies had gone.)  So I put Callista on a mattress on the floor of our room to sleep.  Overnight, Oey came in and said she'd puked in HER bed, so onto a floor mattress she went as well.

They spent the entire night rotating gastric events every twenty minutes.

Started out somewhat contained. 

Things kept devolving.

Juni got sick the next day, and all three of them have been sick ever since.  It has been brutal.  Today is the fourth calendar day of running fevers, changing clothes and sheets, bleaching the bathroom, and caring for kids who want to eat and drink and also decidedly don't.  Callista is currently being fueled by the ghosts of about eight raspberries.  Oey is tenuously held on this side of eternity by some swallows of watered-down orange juice.  (The watered-down grape juice was a failed experiment, and now my living room rug is marbled purple.  When someone tells you grape juice stops vomiting, report them and have them jailed.)

Literal piles of bodies.

Two nights ago, all three sick girls shared two floor mattresses between them.  Yesterday there were far fewer hazmat incidents, so we are cautiously attempting to have them sleep in their own room.  I'll report back on how that goes.

The girls fell asleep to the soothing sounds of Fried Green Tomatoes while I folded laundry nearby.  Does it not look soothing?

As I write this, my stomach feels a little off, but I'm telling myself that the flu is just a social construct.  Mind over splatter, as the saying goes.  I'll be fine, otherwise who will fold the towels?

One of the benefits of all this laundry was that I got the girls' beds made up nicely after washing everything, and then the girls didn't sleep in their beds for a couple of nights, so they stayed looking nice.  So here's a little better glimpse into the progress I've made in their room over the last week or two.

Remember how it looked before?

Here's a little closer look at the bedding - isn't it so cute?

There have been a few events this week that haven't involved the Gemino-Cursed laundry.  (I've taken to grimly calling it the Spawndry.)  But don't forget about it too long while I fill you in, or it will do something attention-seeking and I'll be back at square one.

First, Finneas had a birthday - he's fourteen!  I am in shock.

He is funny.  I mean, really funny.  He is a natural leader - he knows deep in his bones who he is.  He seems to be impervious to social pressure, and he's charming about it, in the way fourteen-year-old boys can be charming.  He is still thick-as-thieves with Rocco but is also starting to branch out and join Todd and Atticus in some of their "older" activities, like participating in Men's Beer and Books.  He takes school in stride and does well.  He likes working out and often goes for runs on Sunday mornings.  He stands out as his own person in any group he's in.

Lolo made him a scavenger hunt for his birthday and buried his present in the yard!

The rest of us lazy chumps just wrapped ours like normal.  Finneas was genuinely excited about the fart putty Ophelia got him.

Knox thought all the presents were for him.

He was disappointed to be informed otherwise.

For his birthday meals, he requested cereal for breakfast, hot dogs for lunch, and Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner.  So easy and good.  My favorite kind of birthday meals.  In between meals I went grocery shopping.  

While I was shopping, the kids pushed the babies around the house in strollers to keep them occupied.  They loved it.

In the afternoon Atticus drove Finneas to the military surplus store to pick out a birthday present. 

Trying on all their gear - they wear this stuff to airsoft wars.

"Is everything a joke to you?!"  Yes.  Yes it is.

Atticus worked on Saturday, and Penelope worked on Monday.  Monday was our first day back to school after break and it went pretty well.  On Monday night after dinner, we met some friends at the Sonic playground and the kids ran off some steam with their friends.

Penelope got a new outfit and looked so cute.

On Tuesday, Todd and I took the babies with us to pick up milk while the kids prepped dinner at home.  (I still marvel that we have arrived at this stage of life!)  Our milk farmer also raises goats, and all the goats had been kidding recently, so she took me up to the barn to see the new babies.  So many twins!  I have such a soft spot in my heart now for twins - any twins!  all twins!  Some of the baby goats were just hours old and they were so sweet and little.  We got home, ate together, then got the house picked up before the elder session meeting we were hosting after dinner. 

We don't have great indoor space for hosting those monthly meetings, but we've discovered that our garage table is a great place in inclement weather, and our back deck is great during nice weather.  The elders met on the deck, and after I got the little kids in bed, the older kids and I started the Order of the Phoenix.  Unfortunately, it started pouring down rain partway toward the end of Todd's meeting, and Callista started puking while I was watching the movie, so both our evenings didn't end exactly as we'd planned!

Men are so easy to host.  Sit them in a metal chair outside in the rain, but give them cigars and whiskey and homemade cookies, and they'll be perfectly happy.

And from then on, the week took on a decidedly different tone.  We didn't do any school on Wednesday, since the girls were really sick and I got almost no sleep the night before, so we all napped in my room all afternoon.  Thursday I was able to keep up with the bare minimum of school activities with the healthy kids while the sickies were still strung out.  And that brings us to today.  I'm hoping that everyone wakes up feeling better and that no one else falls sick.  Here's to hoping!  So, to that end, here are some photos of the babies being adorable to put us in the right frame of mind.

Since the couches were taken up with sick kids, the boys brought up their beanbag chairs for extra seating.  The babies thought they were so funny.  I call this photo, "Beans Bag."

Butters, sharing toys to help Callista feel better.

Beans, making mischief.

Just a potato in a sack.

Happy (and hopefully healthy!) weekend!