'Tis the Season,...

Flu season, that is. Whadda week. Tuesday began with my 8 year old complaining he didn't want to eat and his stomach hurt. First, I'm miffed that the $4.87 box of junky sugared cereal has been infiltrated and a bowl poured into milk. No saving it. After more whining I release him from the table and give him some of my 'mommy wisdom.'

"When I was your age my tummy hurt when I was upset, too." I say. He had been complaining the day before about injustices wreaked by a couple of friends. He's also upset that we are moving soon. I know how it is, I'm an army brat. I developed weird stomach anomolies in second grade too. Maybe it's hereditary.

As I take a breath and am about to launch into the whole saga, he subsequently pukes. So much for mommy wisdom; the kid is sick.

He doesn't eat much for the rest of the week, which is always worrying because as slim as my kids are (why is youth, beauty, skinniness and the desire not to eat wasted on youth??), he is skeleton boy. I just want to hook an IV up to a stick of butter and stab his arm some days.

Thursday we go up to Puyallup to celebrate SIL's birthday. My kindergartner doesn't want a snack. 'Odd' I think. Duh. When will I not be a dense mother? We go and have a great time with family. The skinny 8 year old eats a peice of bread, and the kindergarner eats only noodles.

We get home late, around 9:30pm. As I turn off the car, kindergartner throws up all over the floor of the Suburban. I enlist my 10 year old to carry the B upstairs and stick her in her crib as I calm down the wailing kindergartner while he continues to throw up in the car and all over me. We get in the house, strip down and get him in bed finally. About 10:30 I find my 9 1/2 month preggo self out in the cold dark night shopvaccing and scrubbing the back of the Suburban. Silver lining: at least he didn't eat the sauce! Get to bed around 11pm.

At about 2am I'm not feeling too great, but I think it's the residual result of cleaning up vomit. At 3am the B wakes up puking. Her bed is a loss, I clean her up and bring her into bed with me. She continues to vomit until 5 am. We've gone through a pillow case, five towels and two changes of clothes for me.

I beg my poor mother to stay late (she leaves for work at 5am) and take the only surviving healthy child to school. She does so and I tackle about 50 loads of laundry.

The only light at the end of the tunnel was logging on and seeing my So Cal neighbor Janice ALSO had the same kinda week I had. Misery loves company!

This week, so far everyone is healthy. Slowly introducing real food back to the kids. They've had a grand time surviving off of toast, sprite and jello for the last five days.

On top of this, the dog decided not to eat for the past five days, as well. He too, seems to be regaining his appetite. I think he was fasting until I took pity on him and moved him into the house. He's doing better now that he lives in the basement next to the GameCube so he gets plenty of attention. He must just be too good for that kennel in the garage.

What made us all forget this crazy flu season was on Saturday, the first day of December, it snowed! Simply perfect for four kids who spent the last year in Indonesia. Who cares it was a centimeter of snow stuck on the ground. They went out in all their mitties and scarves and scraped up enough of it to make a couple of pathetic little snowballs and had a great time.

Unfortunately, now we are back to the usual NW weather, which as you may have seen on the news, is horrible and many people are fighting flood waters. A few people have died. We are hoping for relief tomorrow.

Gee, flooding or mud slides? So tough to decide between California and Washington some days.