The winter break from hell...

Winter break is a time of year that a lot of kids (and sometimes their parents) look forward to. I am usually on the fence about it. I usually hope that its far enough away from summer that they don't remember all the ways their siblings wronged them then. I hope that they have been so busy with school and plays that they have missed their siblings and are looking forward to spending time with them rather than fighting the whole time.

Our winter break started off with a small hiccup in the form of a cancelled baby sitter. I asked around and all of the usual people that I would trust leaving my children with were sick. Luckily, my mother happened to stop by and was willing to stay with them.

On the 23rd my husband's ex called. Stormy and Braydon had been with her for a couple of days, she called to tell us that Stormy wasn't feeling well, and she wanted us to meet her at the ER. Stormy had a slight fever, and had been complaining that her ear hurt. His ex decided to take her in because Stormy's ear had started leaking. It turns out that her ear drum had popped. Three hours later we left the ER with a prescription and a Stormy who was looking forward to sleeping in her own bed.

Christmas Eve was when the real fun started. Alex (the husband) started throwing up that morning, and so did Josh and Eric. We managed to power our way through our Christmas Eve traditions. Luckily, (for the first time ever) we had gotten everything ready early, so all we had to do was set everything out and go to bed.

Christmas day was ok. We didn't have anyone that was sick, and we felt well enough to visit our families. Sorry if we left behind germs, I didn't know what I was dealing with at that point!

Every single year for the past 14 years I have had a party on Christmas night. A bunch of people get together and get drunk to celebrate the fact that Christmas is over. Due to the fact that I was feeling pretty crappy Christmas night, and the fact that they were predicting a huge snow storm that night, I decided to break tradition and cancel the party.

I think we had one get sick early in the morning on the 26th, and the baby had a mystery fever on the 27th. We had one randomly throw up on the 28th. The 29th everyone seemed well so Morgan went to hang out with her best friend and I went to hang out with her mom. It wasn't long before my husband started texting me about Sidney (the baby). He threw up all over his bed, then fell off the couch!

I was feeling pretty crappy on New Year's Eve. I ended up laying around most of the day, not doing much. Alex and I ran out at around 6 or so to get dinner. We grabbed some Little Caesar's pizzas for the kids. We settled in to watch Brave and wait for midnight. We were an hour into the movie when the hell began. Stormy stood up and started walking towards her dad. She got about halfway there before she stopped and puked on the floor. We sent her to the bathroom (where she promptly vomited in front of (not in) the toilet. While we were dealing with those messes Eric quietly slipped into the bathroom and threw up. When we finally settled back into watching Brave, we gave Stormy a bucket to use, just in case. Twenty minutes later she made use of the bucket. Which apparently prompted Braydon to get sick on the floor. Then they were sharing the bucket for a few minutes while all of the other kids scattered. This in turn prompted Eric to get sick again, and Morgan joined the pukefest too.

I sort of lost track of all the days after the New Year's Eve vomitfest, but here are the rest of the events between then and today:

-Alex fell over the baby gate, hurting his arm, back and head.

-We tried to go to the bowling alley to cash in on the gift certificate we got for Christmas, only to be turned away for leagues. (Despite the fact that I called before we loaded 7 kids into the van and drove there on the last of our gas and was told that it was a good time to come in and use it.)

-We had to take Eric to the doctor with a mystery rash. (virus related?)

- Had to rush Morgan to the ER when she broke out in hives.

- Both Alex and I have gotten sick a couple of times.

I think that's it. I think I managed to tell you everything.

Of course all of this was on top of the kids fighting and beating the hell out of each other, and figuring out every imaginable way to torture each other. But that's normal every day stuff, right?

Thanks for reading (and hopefully being glad that your break was not this bad)

~Kelli