Under the Weather . . . And the Laundry Pile

I think I need to take a blogging hiatus, my friends. Not long, just a couple of days to get myself and my house back together. We've been living separate lives, and it's time to rekindle the old magic.

I've been sick for weeks now and it's starting to wear on me. I seem to catch every little cold that comes down the pike, and then that cold turns into a sinus infection. Plus, I have a cough that sounds like a death rattle. Overall, it's nothing very serious, but it is tiring when I can't breathe very well.

This weekend, as I was trying to keep my poor lungs in my body, I asked Rob (semi-rhetorically) why I keep getting sick this fall. It's like I'm immuno-compromised or something.

My husband, the kind man that he is, refrained from yelling, WELL, NO DUH!

Instead, he just smiled and said, "You ARE relatively immuno-compromised. Your body has kicked it into low gear so that you don't attack the whopping portion of non-Aimee DNA that you're growing. We love the baby, but technically speaking, your body has to suspend operations to accommodate something that is not part of you."

He makes everything sound so cool, right?

Still, I find it very hard to offer up these kinds of minor sufferings when I am in the thick of them. I get cranky instead.

Especially when my carefully laid plans go awry. Like when the kids and I finally got the call to go get our flu vaccines and I couldn't get mine because I had a fever from my sinus infection. It's not the end of the world, I realize, but like I said, I get cranky.

So I need to un-crank myself and get cracking on my huge list of pre-Thanksgiving chores. No matter how long I leave the cleaning supplies sitting on the counter, these bathrooms aren't going to take the hint and clean themselves, my friends. (believe me, I've tried!)

Hopefully, I'll be able to pull out of my head-congestion induced fogginess before too long. I was finally able to taste a little bit of my breakfast, but, of course I also poured apple cider instead of milk on my cheerios this morning. I'll call that a draw.

Catch you later, my friends.

Bad Haiku Friday

I know it's early, but I need to make sure that St. Nick has enough lead time on my request.

Dear Santa, please bring

a new set of sinuses,

since mine are kaput.

Bad sinus infections deserve bad haiku. Go see more at Laura's, and stay healthy this weekend!

Happy Veterans Day

To one of my very favorite veterans:

The dress blues (which are really black) look great subbing for a tuxedo.

The dress whites really are white. And you've never seen a man eat as carefully as when he is wearing all white and a choker collar.

The Navy Ball is so much fun.

Me (hugely pregnant with Fiver) pinning on Rob's collar devices at his promotion to Lieutenant Commander.

To all the veterans who have served our country (and I'm looking at you too, Dad!), The HomeFront says:

Thank you!

Reason #7235 Why I Love Rob

This morning, before school:


Me: Look at this house! It is 7:15 in the morning, the kids have been up for ONE SINGLE HOUR and it looks like we've been sacked by Viking raiders. All I do is pick up messes! How does that happen?!

Rob: No honey. SIX people have been up for one hour. This is six people's worth of personal mess crammed into one hour. The house can't handle that kind of time-space manipulation. Don't take it personally.

A Flu-ed Argument

Fiver's class has dropped like flies this week. On average, he has had about fourteen classmates absent each day, with no signs of the census increasing any time soon.

Wondering where all the children have gone, I kept hearing from parents and other teachers that "everyone is out with the swine flu."

Really? Every single one?

Then I got a call from my friend, whose son is in class with Fiver and has been one of the absentees this week. I asked her how her son was doing and she said, "Oh he's got the swine flu."

There it is again, that darn swine flu. And I started to get confused. (It's really not that hard for me, my friends).

Because here's the thing (at least in PA): Rob told me that doctors are not even testing for the swine flu. The only lab that is doing swine flu tests is the state lab, so unless their patient is hospitalized with secondary infections, the state has told doctors not to test for swine flu. If the state tested for every case of the flu, the lab would be doing H1N1 tests all day, every day.

So how do all these people know that their children have swine flu? Am I missing something?

My friend told me that the doctor's office told her over the phone that her son has swine flu, without seeing him. They said the symptoms sounded like it.

Of course, his symptoms also sounded like influenza A, but they didn't tell her that.

I hate to criticize doctors' offices, since I know how busy they get at this time of year. I mean really slammed. However, I told Rob that I thought it was unwise of that office to tell my friend that her son had swine flu with no possible way of knowing if that could be true.

Because here's the other thing: the media has done a super job of making people really afraid of getting the swine flu. Friends have said to me, after their children test positive for the seasonal flu, "well, at least it's not swine flu! Whew!"

But your child still has the FLU. It's just a different strain.

Now, I'm not trying to make light of this flu season. The flu, whichever kind, is a bad bug. It has laid people I know out flat for two weeks, and it has done a great deal worse to many more.

I have been part of a small army of people praying for a dear little girl who had been on life support for the better part of a month due to H1N1. Praise God that she has come off the vents and machines, but there were two more pre-schoolers in flu-related comas who took her place. I know that this virus is hard on little ones, and I think that's what makes it so scary.

My friend is rightfully worried about her son because he has chronic health problems that could become very severe with the flu. Telling her that he has H1N1, with no way of knowing for certain, does nothing to help calm her fears.

All this misinformation is just starting to chafe me.

Lots of people think that because of Rob's job, I have some kind of inside to track to vaccines and other preventative care, but anyone who's related to a doctor can tell you otherwise.

My kids and I are still waiting for flu shots, and at the rate we're going, we'll be able to get one in March. When flu season is over.

I am not anti-vaccine, Rob has expressed his desire that we get flu vaccines this year, and if the nurse called me and told me that they finally had the vaccine in, I would drive the kids right over. But we also know it's not a magic bullet. We have to keep our heads and keep up our preventative measures while we're waiting for access to the vaccine.

It seems that The Flu, as a topic, is a real hot button, and I'm not trying to kick a hornet's nest, but I just have to call it like I see it.

I am not immune to fears of serious illness in my children, and when I start to get really worried, Rob talks me off a ledge with common sense, like this:

• Start with a good diet, rich in vitamins C and D, and get plenty of rest.
• WASH YOUR HANDS. This cannot be underestimated. (We also sanitize with alcohol based sanitizers when we come out of stores -- but we still wash our hands at the first opportunity.)
• STAY HOME when you are sick. Keep your kids home when they are sick. Even if they are missing really fun stuff like field trips and birthday parties.
• Clean the communal surfaces in your home OFTEN: doorknobs, telephones, computer keyboards, etc . . .
• Tamiflu is only effective if started in the first 24 hours of the flu. Otherwise you have to ride it out. Other family members should NOT be treated prophylactically with Tamiflu.
• If you are choosing to vaccinate, remember that the nasal mist type of vaccine has the flu virus in it, so it is possible to get a mild case of the flu. Pregnant women and small children should get the shot, not the mist.
• Remember that H1N1 IS the flu, and it is less deadly worldwide than the seasonal flu (even though it seems to affect an entirely different population than the "regular" flu.)
• Did I mention WASH YOUR HANDS? Soap and water are our BFF.

And after all this, you might still get sick. It's easy to see where the fear comes from.

How about you, my friends? Is the flu rampant where you are? Have you or your kids had it? Any good flu-fighting tips?

Stay well . . . I'm off to wash my hands.

One

I have finally reached the stage where the majority of my small herd of children can be put to work to earn their keep. Score!

Lucky for Francie and Fiver that Sally likes to rake leaves while they are at school.

Of course, I still have one straggler who just monkeys around all day!

Two

Is it beginning to sound a lot like Christmas, or is it just me? Every store I've been in lately has had Christmas music playing and the front doors of our Target are covered with snowflakes.

Plus, when I put my iPod on "shuffle" it seems to pick a disproportionate amount of selections from my Christmas play list. Two weeks ago I could have gone for hours without hearing a Christmas carol. This week, every other song has jingling bells in the background. Maybe I should start calling my iPod "Hal". Scary.

I blame it on the dearth of Thanksgiving songs. If we had some rocking turkey carols we would be set!

Three

God bless the people who thought up photo cards that are comprised of individual shots of each child, rather than one group photo. It makes my Christmas card loving self about ten thousand times less stressed out.

No matter how careful I am about making sure the kids are rested and fed and happy, and no matter how much bribery cajoling goes on while the picture is being taken, I still get this more often than not:

And although the above photo may be an accurate depiction of what happens nearly every time I try to get a good family shot, it's not necessarily the look I want to send out on our family Christmas card. Individual shots let me live in my own little fantasy world, my friends.

Four

I saw a raccoon on the side of the road yesterday, and it reminded me of Fiver's special stuffed raccoon, Moey (pronounced: moe-ee). That got me thinking about the special items that help each of the kids calm down at bedtime.

Francie used to have a pacifier as a baby, but now she has a small coterie of stuffed animals that she carefully arranges on her bed at night.

Fiver, with the exception of Moey, has no blankies or stuffed animals, but he has sucked his first two fingers on his right hand since the was six weeks old. He still does, and yet he has the most perfectly aligned teeth of the four. Go figure.

Sally's comfort is thumb sucking, and she has sucked her thumb since birth. But that doesn't stop here from having everything but the kitchen sink in her bed. You think I'm kidding, but I found one of those big metal, retractable tape measures in her bed the other day. If we are missing something in the house, we always make a point to search Sally's crib.

And Bun? Bun is the most exclusive of my gang. He has a beloved blanket with a satin binding and he WILL NOT sleep without it. He eschewed thumb, fingers, and pacifiers for this blanket and he sucks on the binding to fall asleep every night.

Unfortunately, the other kids have named it "Sucky Blanket" which gets shortened to the even more unsavory "Sucky." When we are out we all guard it like it is another child, that's how beloved it is, but I would still feel better if I could get an exact duplicate. Especially given how many times that thing goes through the washer and dryer.

Alas, Sucky was a gift for Bun's birth and the company no longer makes the exact blanket. I have tried several times to slip Bun a very similar product, but he can't be fooled. There is only one Sucky Blanket.

He may be wearing it as a boutonniere at his wedding.

Five

My book club meets tonight, and this month we read a Jodi Picoult novel ("Change of Heart"). I know people love her books and from the tenor of the emails that have been going around among my book club members, I am going to be Debbie Downer of tonight's meeting.

This is the third Picoult book I've read, and I didn't hate this one, but sometimes I just feel like her books are too gimmicky, or contrived. I know she purposely picks controversial topics -- "Change of Heart" is about the death penalty and religious beliefs -- but sometimes I feel like she picks the most outrageous situations just to push the morality/ethics.

I'm not saying that horrible, outrageous things don't really happen, but I don't think you have to have that kind of setting to make moral decisions. You do that every day anyway.

Maybe I'm too harsh and I'm looking at it the wrong way (although the very nature of reading and literature is intrinsically interpretive). I'm interested to hear what everyone else has to say tonight.

Six

Fiver's first field trip of the year is next week, and the permission slip asked for parents who might be available to chaperone. I put my name down, and last week I got a note saying "thanks, but we don't need you this time around." They put me on the list for the next field trip.

Rob asked if I was going to chaperone, and I told him that they didn't need me this time. I admitted that I was a little nervous because this will be Fiver's first field trip without me right next to him, acting as his de facto aide.

Rob smiled and said, "Honey, think how far he's come for the teachers to be comfortable enough to tell you to stay home. Last year it was implied that you would accompany him on every field trip. Now he's doing so well that he can go without you."

He's totally right (and that's why I love him.) Fiver is knocking it out of the park this year.

He's even reading at school Mass on Monday; three guesses as to who will be sitting in a pew trying not to cry her eyes out at 11:15 Monday morning.

Seven

"Do now, do now, what you will wish to have done when your moment comes to die."

St. Angela Merici

I hope I can remember this every time one of the kids wants to do something fun with me and I feel like sitting at the computer, or every time I think something nice about a person but never tell them, or especially when I am tempted to withhold forgiveness or mercy to a person who has wronged me.

You know where to find the rest of the Quick Takes -- go visit Jennifer.

Happy Friday, my friends, and have a great weekend!

Picture Pages

I can't believe I am admitting this, but I think I have reached my limit of Halloween candy.

I also think that if I can escape this pregnancy without gestational diabetes it will be through no effort of my own. Go, go mighty pancreas!

We are battling some little viral cold thing that is going around, which is no big deal except for the desire to just lie around with a cup of hot tea all day. Sadly, that course of action does not produce very much in the way of clean laundry or hot meals. Drat.

Also? Our heater is having some kind of emotional breakdown. Just when it starts getting all frosty overnight. Double drat.

So instead of thinking about all that, I've decided to post the kids school pictures instead. Whee!

I think you can all spot a Lifetouch school portrait from a mile away (seriously, IS there any other school portrait company?), so don't go stealing these pictures for yourselves. Besides, I have about seventy two hundred of those annoying teeny tiny little pictures -- the wallet sized ones that are the size of my thumbnail. Call me and you can have one.

Fiver, with his classic, borderline-mad-scientist smile. You can't see it too much in this picture, but it's the eyes that do it.

Francie, who rarely shows her teeth when smiling, looking like she is about to bust a gut laughing. I love that.

Of course, there are no school pictures of Sally or Bun. In fact, they have never had any formal portraits taken.

You know what? They don't have any baby books either. The poor, poor wee lass and lad.

But they have a metric ton of Kit Kats at their beck and call. That's what I call a fair trade.