Last Friday, Jason left in the afternoon for PA while I was doing town errands. He was going up for a visit/work weekend, to contribute to some projects at his parents' place. While we'd miss him, we also had some fun things planned for our girls' weekend (pizza party, a day with Luca, etc...). Those things did not happen!
As the evening wore along, Alida noted that her stomach felt off. She didn't finish her ice cream...red flag! Terah and Alida joined me in our bed for the night and thankfully Alida took one of the edges. At 11 p.m. she threw up for the first time - amazingly NOT in the bed, but also not in any receptacle. I carried Terah sleeping to her bed because I didn't know what tending Alida was going to need the rest of the night and figured 3 in the bed might make that harder. Got all cleaned up and settled and maybe caught a cat nap before the next wave struck her. Then around 1 a.m. I heard Terah throw up - also mostly off the edge her bed. So another clean up job and I made a makeshift bed on the floor of our room so I could have both kids and their barf tubs close by. They both were pretty clockwork retching on the hour. Around 5 something in the morning I heard Kali stirring. Uh oh! Her bed hangs from the ceiling so I didn't feel eager to clean her bed/bedding OR to have her lean out over the edge. I woke her enough to give her a container and it was a good choice. Things got rolling around 6 a.m. for her.
Not a restful night! But in the morning, I realized I better use any burst of energy I had to do some things before I fell ill. I got our woodboxes loaded up and made a chicken soup. I was already feeling kinda crummy so sorting chicken feet and necks was NOT an enjoyable job, but we were VERY grateful in the subsequent days for that pot of soup chicken corn potato soup!
Thankfully the vomiting phase subsided pretty quickly and I never got that phase. I jumped directly to the achy, miserable and completely out of it phase. So our girls' weekend was mostly spent on the futon, bed or sleeping bags on the floor. We watched or slept through a few documentaries, watched a few movies and I read and read Anne's House of Dreams out loud (which we finished). Everything on the calendar got cancelled, and we did the bare minimum - which did include me and Kali having to do the Saturday milk pick up at our neighbor's farm (first time for either of us without Jason). Of course it happened to dovetail with there being more milk than there has been in weeks, but we got the tank emptied and ourselves and the milk home all in one piece! My parents were complete rockstars - Mom helping with laundry, Dad helping with chores and them furnishing us with saltines and gingerale. It really would have been so much harder without them!
So far my parents are still healthy (we've been mostly staying completely apart or popping masks on) and Jason hasn't gotten it yet - he extended his time in PA by a day to give it more time to clear the air. By Tuesday, the stomach stuff was mostly all gone other than maybe still lowered appetites. We cleaned and cleaned and cleaned - four loads of laundry and about a gallon of white vinegar to try to reduce whatever exposure Jason would have rejoining us. This has been such a weird bug if we do even understand where we got it and the length of incubation and time for transmission. Sigh!
I was hoping it would be 24 hours and out, but it seems that either we had a co-infection of a minor cold too or somehow some congestion, tickly throats and slightly runny noses was all part of the same package. We are doing our best to avoid getting anyone else sick, but have no idea when we aren't contagious anymore - there's a very special someone upstairs who has a birthday on Saturday and we would really like to celebrate with her!!!!
So here we are... The first night I had some odd ability to see the humor in my role. It felt almost comical as I rotated from one barf basin to the next. I realized it was the first time in all my years of parenting that all of our kids were sick at the exact same time with the exact same thing. In some ways I'm glad it didn't hit one of us and then wait days and then the next and so on. We just all went down together. The humor didn't stay with me too well into the daylight hours and I'm not enjoying this lingering phase where we can't say boldly that we are symptom free but also aren't actively sick anymore, and making decisions that come with that ambiguous status. But there were some wonderful moments - when Alida felt good enough to make pancakes, when the dominos came out and kids were playing upright, when Kali got the twinkle back in her eye, when we could enjoy our "pizza party" and had enough brain power to play Rook again, etc...
While his spouse and daughters were lounging around in a state of malaise, Jason was enjoying some wonderful connection time with his family and also replacing windows and framing a new bathroom and things like that in PA. He got out of here at a good time!! I think he's happy to be back but he dove right back into his current construction project here and we really haven't had time to do much by way of catching up. It continues to be a very full season of life for him. And his construction skills are so very much appreciated by many who benefit from them (our household included), even as he continues to yearn to be doing what really makes his heart sing and what feels like a much deeper calling for him in a full-time kinda way! So far, anyway, it seems so very much easier to find people willing to pay a skilled carpenter than a plant or animal breeder... I keep hoping that we'll find the right connections sooner rather than later!
So that's that. I'll include all the other updates in a separate post... It's amazing how quickly the world gets reduced to what's happening within the walls of your home, or maybe within a single room. We are slowly venturing back out in mind, body and spirit!
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