And no, it's not the wet, muddy, mid-sized dog that barged into my house and tore around my living room the other day. To the elderly woman on a walk who happend upon a stray, unleashed dog: PLEASE don't bring an animal to my porch and knock on my door to ask if its mine, allowing it to dart in and run around with its big muddy paws while I attempt to catch it. Thank you. :)
Anyway.
It's the flu.
Not a stomach virus or anything like that, but good old fashioned influenza.
Fever.
Chills.
Headaches.
Coughs.
Nasty noses.
So far it's taken out Biniam, Kaitlyn, Anna, Yosef and me.
Yes, me! Mama to seven, who had all sorts of places to be this past week but had to cancel every.single.plan. Lunch duty at the kids' homeschool program? RCIA? Stations of the Cross? Lenten retreat? Mass? Dinner out with a bunch of couples I adore during restaurant week? Yep, every single thing missed. Instead, I've been holed up in my house, blowing my nose and attempting not to move or do any more than absolutely necessary.
But wait, you say, didn't we get our flu shots like good respectable citizens? Now please don't send me a bunch of hatemail, but I have always more or less skipped flu shots for our family. (Except for when babies are little or when I've been pregnant...and my two daughters with Down syndrome received flu shots this year and will going forward...but the rest of us did not.) I just have really mixed feelings about vaccines and while my kids are vaccinated for all the biggies, it still makes me uncomfortable. But. This is the second February in a row our family has had the flu, and I'm getting reallllllll tired of it. Flu shots for all of us next year is what I'm thinking! (Although if you ask me again a few months from now when I'm healthy and not feeling so awful, I might just change my mind and say it was merely the saltines talking.)
So if the blogging seems a bit sparse, friends, this is why. We Heldts are in what I like to call "survival mode"--which amounts to a messier-than-I'd-like house and kids who are not bathing as often and lots of toast and unending cartoons. Probably throws me out of the running for mom-of-the-year, but shoot, we're surviving!
And I hope you all are having a lovely, flu-free February.
