Let me start this post out by saying there is still a lot of sickness going on in this house. How I haven’t come down with it yet is a bit of a mystery. I’m not taking measures to avoid contact with my children or their bodily fluids because it would be futile.
There are the tissues my daughter blows her nose with that the dog finds and after she’s put them down by her pillow and fallen asleep end up shredded on the floor. The cough drop my son decides he doesn’t prefer and hands to me directly, sticky from his mouth, lest he put it down on the sofa because he’s too tired to get up and throw it away. There was the coughing spell my son had last night that caused him to gag repeatedly and throw up on his bedding and their hot little sweaty bodies that need help getting changed into clean pajamas.
We’re not sending either of them to school tomorrow. They have symptoms go away but new ones crop up or old ones come back. My husband has spent close to three days now in a reclining chair in the basement, sleeping through the night. He has a cough too and has had a fever that got up high enough last night that he took a cold shower he felt so badly.
It’s coming, I’m sure of it. There’s no way I’m getting out of this unscathed. I’d love to say I have some super repellant immune system but for the last forty-nine years evidence has shown I’m just as likely to be the first to get something as the last with those I’m surrounded by. But for now, I’m glad I’m managing to hold it off, because someone had to do things around here.
We were woefully low on food in the house. We had been putting off going to the grocery store and then everyone got sick. Appetites were low so we put it off for longer but after dinner last night I had to do something so once I got the children to bed I put the long list of needed consumables in order on my phone and headed to the store.
Grocery shopping I don’t mind doing. My husband and I do the shopping equally, deciding who will go based on schedule and availability. While my the rest of my family was asleep, I went to the store and filled the cart so full I was doing some balancing of items in the end, trying to keep it all in the cart.
When I got home the unpacking and putting up had to be done. And this is the part that always gets me: it takes longer to put everything up than it does to shop for it in the first place. Or so it does in my house. I unpack everything, putting the packaging in the appropriate recycling or trash bins. Cereals go into cereal containers, snacks are emptied into airtight pop-off lid containers, granola bars, apple sauce and fruit cups are stacked in a caddy. Yogurts are put in rows in the refrigerator based on flavor and all other non-perishables are sorted and organized in the pantry.
When it’s done, you can go in and get what you’re looking for quickly and without the need to open or get rid of packaging. It’s more space-efficient in that the amount of space it would take to fit one bag of Fritos fits three bags and there’s no need for a chip clip and things don’t go stale. It’s a lot of work when the groceries first come home, but I like having things organized, easily accessible and in containers that prevent things from going stale.
This morning I didn’t even need to say anything to my children because they found the food and got their own breakfasts. Tonight out of a need to just get out of the house for something, anything, a change of scenery, my husband went to the store. I told him to get something for breakfast the children could manage on their own and I didn’t care if it wasn’t very healthy. He came back with mini powdered donuts and mini chocolate donuts. I’d say he nailed that one. I’m hoping to sleep in until at least eight tomorrow with that much sugar sitting on the counter for the children for breakfast.
The Big Boy Update: My son watched a lot of television today. He has a bad cough but normally would want to play video games but his energy has been low. At seven-fifteen tonight he suddenly said, “turn it off” to no one in particular. He’d had enough of the television and barely protested when I told him I was going to help him get ready for bed.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter wanted to play, “bath time” today with me, which turned out to be one of her imagination verbal games. I talked her into an actual bath and let her use some of my bath salts. She got some tub toys and was playing with them when I came in at one point. She said, “mom, can you see how I’ve sorted the toys?” She had put half on one side of her and half on the other. They were: aligator car, frog, duck, octopus on one side and whistle, watering can, plane and cup on the other side. She told me, “these are things that live in water and these other things you use in water."
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