Whew!

There is a draft of a post that I started on 11/9. I promise to come back to that subject matter sometime soon, but for the moment just a quick catch-up from M-family land.

On 11/10, after my pile system triumph I went home not feeling so great. I managed to plow through the regular evening routine and then collapsed in bed as soon as Heather was settled. I stayed home sick Wednesday and Thursday. Thursday night R was struck by it and all four of us stayed home Friday. I was still feeling too poorly to take the kids to school and I didn't want to share my germs with all the kids. So, of course, after a day of taking care of Heather, she woke up with it Saturday morning. And just when we thought we were out of the woods, Todd was sent home with a fever Tuesday and Heather went to school but felt not-so-great on Wednesday. (If I could have a do over for Wednesday morning, I would listen to her and give her the medicine she asked for. I continued taking motrin even after my chills were gone for the general achiness, so why didn't I listen?!?!) Thursday was our final family day of being home sick. Heather woke up cranky, but was feeling better after a few extra hours of sleep. Todd was cranky and coughing. And after the mommy-guilt on Wednesday I decided it was better just to take one more day of recovery at home.

Since last Friday we've all been back to our regular schedule, and slowly we are shedding the coughing and crankiness and tiredness of being sick. Being the last to get sick, Todd is the last to get back to normal...but he is generally happy and the worst coughing seems to be in the morning, so I am keeping my fingers crossed that four days of being able to sleep in and nap as needed will get us all back to our healthy selves.

I know that I could use some more sleep. Last night, Todd fell asleep with Rudy around 8:30. I grabbed him when I went up to bed at 10, and he nursed. Then the little stinker opened his eyes and gave me a big smile, and proceeded to play and kick in bed for the next hour. Sigh. It would have been really cute if I wouldn't have been desperate to go.to.sleep.


See? Adorable smile. But more so at 8pm than 11pm.

I guess if he does it again this weekend we can just give him to an available grandparent and go to sleep until he gets hungry...

ETA: For those who are curious, I have no idea what we had. From a little WebMD reading, it sounds more likely that we had some sort of flu than a cold. But our fevers were mostly mild and at least for me the achiness was limited to my head and neck. I suppose I could bug one of our pediatrician friends to suggest a diagnosis, but none of us (so far, *knock on wood*) was sick enough to need to see a doctor. And motrin was all that was administered. So there is a little part of my brain wondering if what we had was a mild flu...and given the earliness of the season, was it h1n1...but I suppose we'll never know for sure.