Sick House

This last month has been a blur.  I cannot believe that I haven't written anything, but then again I totally can.  For one thing, the kids have been generally well-behaved, so there aren't any good stories of their crazy, outlandish behavior.  For another thing, December is crazy in a household of five people.  We have a ton of activities which means a lot of people to shop and buy for at the holidays.

Things were going pretty well up until last week.  Charlie left on Sunday for his last business trip of the year, unfortunately this one was a doozy and he was off to Europe for the week.  Sounds glamorous, but going to London, Paris and Frankfurt in a four day span for meetings is not that fun.  As soon as he walked out the door I told the kids they could stay in their pajamas and do whatever they wanted that day because I had baking to do.  Every year I bake cookies or something for the teachers and neighbors and this year was no exception.  So the kids happily kept themselves busy and I made four batches of cookies (that's about 16 dozen).  I took a break to give the girls a bath and feed the kids dinner and put them to bed, and then dipped Oreos, pretzel sticks, rice krispie treats and s'mores on a stick (three marshmallows on a stick dipped in chocolate, rolled in graham cracker crust and drizzled with more chocolate which if put in the microwave for 5-10 seconds tastes just like a s'more) in dark chocolate.  That was enough for Sunday.

Monday I dipped in white chocolate and made some yummy holiday popcorn for the neighbors.  You get the idea, this continued the rest of the week.  Running around like crazy during the day, Amanda's holiday concert on Monday, Sarah singing at assisted living facilities with the Girl Scouts on Tuesday.  On Tuesday afternoon I took Andy to the doctor because I thought he had strep.  He was run down, but no fever, and had a sore throat and a slight rash on his chest, which has proven to be strep in the past.  He tested negative for strep so they declared it Fifth's Disease and said he could go back to school and would feel better within a few days.  Thursday morning they called to tell me it was a false negative (see, Mom knows!) and he had tested positive in further testing and he needed to come home immediately because he was contagious.  Um, he's been contagious all week, what's a few more hours?  Friday I woke up with a horrible sore throat and thought I was coming down with strep, but after a two hour trip to the Walgreen's Clinic found out I had the flu.  Yes, we all had flu shots in October but by now you've probably heard that this year's flu vaccine was not very effective.  I started Tamiflu on Friday and Charlie took the kids to get it for the rest of the family on Saturday.  So far nobody else has gotten it and we will hopefully be perfectly healthy to travel on Friday to visit my family for the holidays.

So I thought I was doing pretty well having my husband out of the country the busiest week of the year and taking care of all their activities and all the gifts and at the end I just petered out.  Thankfully everything got done and handed out before I was incapacitated.  Kind of like when you go and go and go in college and then as soon as finals are over you get crazy sick because your body can't take it anymore.  Luckily because I did get the flu shot I don't think I got it as badly as some people.  I'm on day four and am still run down but otherwise most of my symptoms are gone.  I'm hoping to enter society again tomorrow, taking Andy to a doctor appointment and getting one more last minute gift for Charlie.  We'll see if that really happens.

As of now, everyone is on Tamiflu and Andy is also on an antibiotic, but we're alive and well and looking forward to the holidays.  If only I have time to finish wrapping all the presents.  Thankfully this year my need to shop ridiculously early paid off and all of my shopping is basically done.  We got some snow last night and so it's really starting to feel like Christmas!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

I'm a little in shock that it's December 1st.  Yes, I've been buying Christmas/Hanukkah presents since August (hey, when you see something you have to buy it because you may not be able to find it later), but December still snuck up on me.  Maybe it was because I was out for a week or so due to my surgery, I'm not really sure.  All I do know is that when I realized that the Monday after Thanksgiving was December 1st I had a little panic attack and now it's here.

I'm not sure why I'm so worried.  It's not that I'm not ready, it's just that everything is happening so fast.  I'm pretty sure I have all the gifts for the kids' teachers already, and I am quite possibly done shopping for the kids as well (I have to take inventory, there are gifts hidden everywhere and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to find them all), and I bought my Christmas cards in September (seriously, if you already have the picture you KNOW you are going to use and the card place is having a 55% off sale, why wouldn't you buy them early?), so there is very little need for pre-holiday stress.

We came home from a fantastic week in Florida for Thanksgiving.  We did something new this year and spent the weekend before Thanksgiving with our friends Hugo and Nicole and their girls at a fantastic resort about 40 minutes from St. Augustine.  Unfortunately we may have gone a little too far north because they got a cold spell that weekend and it was really cold.  It didn't stop the kids from swimming in the lazy river and the unheated pools, but luckily there was a rather large hot tub swimming pool where they stayed warm.  On Monday we headed down to Miami and spent five days with Charlie's family where his mom spoiled us with fantastic cooking and lots of candy and sugar cereal for the kids.  They were in heaven.  We left early Saturday morning which resulted in a very sleepy, lazy day on Saturday but also a chance to get our Christmas lights, trees and decorations up in time for December. Last year we didn't even put up the lights because the first half of December was so cold and by the time it wasn't too cold it wasn't worth it anymore.

So we are raring to go and I just have to get organized, which contrary to what my mother thinks is not my strong point lately.  I have gotten on the lazy train and am not trying too hard to get off.  Hence the reason I'm on it in the first place.

However, Christmas and Hanukkah are going to come regardless of whether or not I'm ready, so I choose to get ready.  Thank God none of my kids are snoopers because my closet is filled with gifts (so full that you can't see the floor) that are very poorly hidden (like not at all) and barely in bags and the door is wide open because there is too much junk in front of it to close it.  Those are the items that do not come from the big, fat, jolly man.  I am a little better at hiding those.

Three more weeks of school and organized life and then chaos and mayhem ensue.  I can get it together by then, really I can.