Well, hey.  What do you know.  I finally have a couple of minutes in the house.  ALL. TO. MYSELF! Sorry for yelling, but it's been awhile.  The sickness that I last wrote about caused quiet a havoc in my house.  Each and everyone of the children fell prey to it.  And I was not feeling so hot myself, but that never counts.  The three older kids each missed three days of school.  Tom missed standardized testing, Katherine came back just in time for a math test that she was not prepared for, and Sam, well he missed a ton.  Seventh grade is proving to be a HUGE step up in the responsibility market, and I'm not sure if he's all that ready for it.

The bug hit Jill the hardest.  The cough...oh my lord, the cough.  She just couldn't get rid of it and it turned into a pneumonia in one of her lungs.  Her fever spiked so high one morning, she was actually hallucinating.  She was seeing huge spiders crawling up her bedroom walls.  This normally would have made me freak out, but this happened to me once as a child and I vividly remember it.  Her fever came right down with some motrin and the doctor didn't seem overly concerned.  After a couple of days on the antibiotic, the fever is gone and so is the cough for the most part.  I even sent her back to preschool today.  But in total, she missed two weeks of school!  Two weeks we're paying for---and that really bugs me.

I don't know what this bug was.  I don't know if it was the seasonal flu or the H1N1, or some mutant common cold.  I have no idea.  The doctor didn't test and she didn't even speculate.  It seems as if her perspective was to just treat the symptoms and not to worry about putting a name to it.  Should that bug me?  I don't know.  I'm just glad we're all better.

All this sickness  has made me less than prepared for Halloween.  I'll admit it, I'm not into this year--at all.  In fact, I have to run out in a few minutes to go see Jill parade around the preschool grounds.  And then after that, I have to go up to the elementary school to see the other two parade around the school.  Frankly, I'm sick of it.  I was going to skip it this year, but the call of duty as a PTA board member was too strong.  Now I have to sit at a table and give out visitor stickers to all the parents.  All I really want to do is stay home and raid the candy I bought for the trick-or-treaters.   I feel like the elementary school goes all-out for Halloween because they can't celebrate any other holidays like, god-forbid, Christmas!

I'll leave you with a couple of pictures:

Katherine passed the strings test at school which allows her to begin taking instrument lessons.  She chose the cello.  Here she is with her half-size cello.

Thomas passed his recorder test which allows him to choose a brass or woodwind.  He chose the trombone.  So here's my T-Bone (we've always called him that) on the trombone.  (I know he's holding it wrong, but he hasn't had any lessons yet.)

  

Comments

[Tammy Barlett]

The flu has wreaked havoc here too - sounds exactly like what you had. Our ped didn't test either, AND still recommends getting the vaccine, and THAT really irritates me. If they just had the da*n flu, I don't want them to have the immunization!!! I also am not into halloween, sadly. We missed the school party last week because Chloe and Stephen were sick. That sucked. Stephen couldn't be in the parade last night because he's sick. Allison had her fall party this morning, and Stephen's eardrum burst right before hand, so even though I had off school today I missed her party and almost missed 'the program' (where they sing songs and stuff) because I had to take him to the doctor. Oops - wow that got long. Sorry. Glad everyone is feeling better!