Weekend O' Fun

We all have those weeks where we just wonder...what the heck just happened?? I have had one of those.

It started off with Claire getting sick last Thursday. She threw up all over her bed and the floor in her room and was droopy all morning. Then, she threw up all over the couch later in the day. Yuck. I am definitely not a fan of the throwing up!! :/ Apparently, she just had some sort of Cameroonian virus.

Here is a side-note: I grew up in places where there are seasons. At the change of each season, people get sick. That's just the way it is. It is, of course, especially bad when winter comes and when Spring comes. Most of you who read this know all about the dreaded flu season. Well, I find it rather funny that everyone gets sick at the change of 'seasons' here, too! What seasons, you might ask? I'm not really sure. They say that there is a dry season and a rainy season. Or, more specifically, the long dry season, the long rainy season, the short dry season and the short rainy season. No one is actually sure when any of these starts or ends. But, I think we all know it by how sick everyone is! Ha! From what I've seen, it rains a little bit less during the 'dry' season, and usually rains a little bit more in the 'rainy' season. However, a few years ago it was very cool to see the red sand in the air from the Sahara when it didn't rain for TWO weeks!

So, Claire was sick Thursday, Friday and much of Saturday. She finally got better... Then came Sunday and I started to feel it come on. I was sick, sick, sick on Sunday night and Monday. To top off the getting sick--Saturday night we had a nice big lightning storm. I LOVE storms! Devin and I sat out on our balcony and watch the torrential rains and purple lightning. Very cool! The storm lasted all night. The biggest problem with storms here is the power issue. Now, the power is not very good on the best of days. When there's a storm, it's worse than terrible. Our power went on and off about every 15 minutes all night.

So, Sunday, we came to find that Andrew's and our air conditioners were completely shot. Blah. So, being the wonderful (?) mother that I am, I gave Andrew my beloved fan for his room, because it was HOT (and I was hoping that it would drown out the stupid birds that start blaring their welcome to the sun at 4 am and waking him up)! Without my fan, though, I just couldn't do it. I lay in my bed tossing and turning, my a/c was growling and not functioning properly, and I felt nasty! Devin was thoughtful, and put a recording of the ocean on repeat on the cd player right next to me. It was helpful, however every time it went to repeat, there was a few seconds of silence that would wake me up. I'm the most terrible light sleeper!!!

Finally, around 11pm, Devin and I tried pulling out the hide-a-bed downstairs to see if it would be any cooler. It was slightly cooler, but BRIGHT (I will NOT miss the florescent 24/7 security lights on our house) and it felt like I was trying to take a nap in the middle of the day. Finally, at 4am, I went back to my dark, warm, quiet room and tried the ocean cd again. I slept until 6am, and just felt sick and tired all day long. It was our scheduled day to have the missionaries over for our bi-weekly dinner and FHE, so I had to prepare dinner for 20 people! No getting out of cooking for me! (We had Hawaiian Haystacks...)

Then, after dinner was over, Peter was tired and hadn't really napped, so I decided to take him up to give him a bath and put him to bed. Well, I put the little foam pad on the ground for me to kneel on, without realizing that there was a big puddle of water on the floor from the earlier bathtime fun... So, yes, I stepped on it while holding Peter, my feet flew out from under me at lightning speed, and since I didn't want to drop the baby, my ribs caught the full weight of the two of us. Pain! So I tearfully bathed Peter, put him to bed, finished FHE and put the other kids to bed...all hoping that I could finally get some sleep and feel better.

No such luck. Monday night I barely slept at all, I was so sick! and I couldn't get comfortable because my ribs hurt so badly.

Tuesday, thankfully, I did feel better, as it was Andrew's birthday and I needed to do a lot of things! I took the kids to playgroup, made 2 cakes, played birthday games... Sadly, we had to go to a temple recommend interview in the afternoon right after Devin got done with work. I went to pick him up to expedite things a bit, hoping that the branch president would be there and we could be in and out quickly with plenty of time to make dinner and have Andrew's little party.

I should have known better. Seriously. Where do I think I live, anyway? Yes, we waited over an hour for the branch president just to GET there. BAH!! Then he took another hour to settle himself in and finally interview us. I felt pretty desperate! My poor little boy's birthday!! and all my babies at home with my poor housekeeper who needed to get home, too. So, on the way home, we got a rotisserie chicken with some fries for dinner. The kids seemed ok with that. They ate their chicken and chips and then while I put Peter down to bed, Devin served out the birthday cake. After Peter was in bed, we opened gifts, and everyone finally went to bed around 8:30...again. *sigh*

Wednesday, I went out to lunch with friends for the first time in my whole life! How fun is that!?!? I felt so grown up! :) It felt so elegant and refined to just sit and chat with my friends without worrying about which of my children were bugging whom. Very nice. Afterwards, I took the kids to another play date, and enjoyed more friends and lots of toys! :)

Thursday, once again I was in the health unit with Claire. She should just live there! Ha! She has some other infection, plus ringworm, too...and I found that my rib is broken. But, seriously, what can you do? Luckily, I have all this household help already, and while I really do most of the work now, at least I CAN delegate if needs be.

Friday, I did a story time on Dinosaurs! It was fun and funny as I tried to think of what songs to sing...and ended up singing songs about turtles and crocodiles. They're from the same 'family', right? It wasn't THAT much of a stretch... Ok, maybe it was, but the kids liked it. Then, I had ANOTHER lunch date! Wow! Two in ONE WEEK after 31 years of nothing! Ha! It was fun! Then I ran home for movie night! Full days at our house! The only problem is, since I've been so busy doing things, the kids haven't been so busy... So instead of me wearing them out by doing things all day, they've just been sitting around and hanging out with the nanny. Slacker mom! Which means that they've gone to bed REALLY late every single night this week! Claire has decided to start being ornery every night. They've all begun the ritual "I need a drink of water... Again!!" and "I have to go potty...Again!" and thinking up every new excuse there is! Good gravy. Hopefully, we'll get them all back on schedule again soon. I'm tired.