One of Those Weeks...You Know the Ones

This has been one of those weeks...you know, the ones that you can't wait to be over so you can get back to normal. This week was off track right out of the gate on Monday.

A little background: Last Saturday afternoon, I let IB go out to play with a little boy from down the street, who then came to play at our house for a short bit. It wasn't until he had been here for a while that I heard the cough and saw the red nose. Ugh. Too late.

Mondays are hard enough around here. Everyone wants to pretend it's still the weekend and shuffle around in their pajamas, doing a lot of nothing. To start off, the furnace has, increasingly, been making strange noises, so I call "the man" to come take a look at it. Papa Bear turns it off before "the man" gets here and when "the man" goes to check it out, it's very hot and won't come back on. Seriously. Thankfully, the furnace still has a few months left on the warranty, so he works his magic and we're only out $120 for labor. Add to that, the mucous party that has been brewing inside of IB for the past 48 hours. By evening, he's snotty, feeling worn out and whiny.

Tuesday is Papa Bear's birthday and I have plans to have dinner ready by 5:30 p.m. and to make his favorite oatmeal cookies. By early afternoon, I'm toting a feverish, clingy baby around on my hip, not getting a single thing done. I manage to get dinner done - with M1's help - after 7 p.m. Fortunately, one of Papa Bear's work buddies bought him dinner earlier. No cookies for Papa Bear today though. M2 only wants to nurse, sleep, and be held. At the same time. All day. And all night. And...

On Wednesday, IB is at the peak of congestion and M2 still has a fever but no other symptoms. I take my personal baby-size heater (read: feverish baby in sling) to the grocery store with me to get some necessities before the "big snow" that's coming. I load up on lots of healthy food and then I grab McDonald's on the way home. (Don't judge, please.) I finally get M2 to sleep without me close to midnight and stay up until 2 a.m. to catch up on dishes and chores. Perfect timing, because M2 wakes up and decides that the only way he can sleep now is to lay across my body.

Thursday morning, we wake up to a beautiful white landscape that will continue to fall all day. IB is feeling a little better, but now M2 is congested and sneezing it out. {Sorry for the visual.} The day goes fairly smooth until M2 throws up on me. This is the first time he has ever really thrown up and you know what he does as soon as he is finished? He smiles. I go to clean him up and realize he also has diarrhea. Double whammy! Poor little guy. Bath time! Later, the hobbits are getting cabin fever and are bouncing off the walls, so I bundle them up and they go outside. For 10 minutes. It is days like this, I am a little thankful for TV. The older boys are smart. They finish their school and chores and stay upstairs playing games.

Right now, M2 is content, pulling papers out of a basket. I don't even care that he's making a mess. He isn't whiny or feverish or throwing up or wanting me to hold him. Oh, spoke too soon. Hopefully, Friday will be better and no one else will be sick. Who am I kidding? LJ hasn't had it yet. The bigger boys may get by without catching this stuff, but not the hobbit.

But I realize that this IS normal. A different variety of normalness that requires me, all of us, to slow down. It forces me to stop all of the busy-ness and focus on nurturing and meeting the needs of my children. To be thankful for each moment that we have together. To be thankful for this flexible lifestyle of homeschooling. To be thankful for the very short time frame I have to hold my babies and nurse them when they are sick. I know that this will pass and the daily routine will go back to "normal" again. And I'll get caught up in it. Until I'm reminded once more to slow down.