Is it January yet?

This is becoming the Christmas that makes me want to say, "Bah Humbug." It's just not coming together at all like I had envisioned. Even with much effort, the decorations are still in flux, disease is running rampant through my household and my house is so messy, I just wave at the dog hair as I pass it by. Things need to improve quickly for me and mine.

I'll give a run down of things that have been happening.

Last week Owen was trying to finish his first set of public school semester finals with 101 degree fever. He managed to make it through to the end and finally collapsed on Thursday night sleeping for 14 hours. He's been struggling to get better and looked like he was on the mend when, today, he threw up twice. UGH AND YUK. John fell to the crude Sunday and has been feverish and coughing his brains out for days and then last night Emma succumbed to the vile mess and now it's set it's cap on me. It's not at all Christmasy to be sick.

Also last night it was John's and my turn to sleep at the church as hosts for Family Promise, a program that helps the homeless. Four times a year our church welcomes families to eat and sleep at our church for 7 days. I can't imagine and hope I never do know what it's like to be homeless, but to be homeless at Christmas time seems even worse. The 3 kids and I played tic tac toe and did puzzles and played until it was bedtime. And although he was precious, the 5 year old kept sneezing and sneezing and I was trying my best to use my shirt as a shield. I was fairly unsuccessful. But bedtime came around at 9:00, which is like 3 in the afternoon for me, and so I had LOTS of time to kill after they went to bed.

John and I stayed up and watched TV until 11:00 and then went to our room to settle in. Our cots were set up and waiting for us so I decided to try mine out. I laid down and lasted about 2 seconds when I made just the slightest little off kilter roll and BAM it happened fast. My bed started flipping and I started grabbing stuff and on my way down, I reached out and grabbed John's cot but all that accomplished was making a cot sandwich out of myself. Both beds folded over on me and I was stuck. John couldn't even pull me up. I had to crawl on my hands and knees to make my way up and out because I was laughing so hard I couldn't move. John looked stunned and scared to laugh, not sure if his laughter would be received by me. It was a wise decision on his part.

So after we reset up the beds, we settled in but I was pretty nervous about moving much because I had no seat belt, so I tried to stay as still as possible. We were set up in one of the little children's church rooms that has a huge, happy smiling Jesus standing next to a tree painted on the wall. It just so happened that my cot was right next to the painting, so Jesus was standing over me all night....which you would think would be a good thing but when I woke up during the night, it freaked me out. When you look up from sleep and notice a man standing nearby....even when it's a happy smiling Jesus, it can freak you out. Needless to say, I didn't sleep well. Finally I drifted off to sleep expecting to wake up near 6:00am but instead looked at the clock and discovered it was 3. That's not good. So I gingerly repositioned myself in my cot and tried to drift back into unconsciousness. It didn't work. Between John's snoring and coughing, and my fear of my bed throwing me again, I slept 6 whole seconds until the alarm went off at 5:45am....which is just the most ridiculous hour of the day. But up I got to knock on people's doors to inform them that sadly it was time to arise. As lively as children can be at 2 or 3 in the afternoon, children at 7 in the morning are like sloths moving ever so slowly. But, eventually they loaded up and headed out for their day. John and I came home and crawled in our bed for a nap only to be awakened by the phone at 9:30. At that point, it was time for me to cut my losses and give up on sleep. About 2:00 this afternoon, without any warning, I got the fever. I got the aches. And that's not good. As I write this, it's 12:51am on December 22nd. At this point in the yuletide season, exactly 67% of my family has the crude and presently Owen's trying to break his 14 hour record sleep from the other day. It's beginning to look a lot like one crappy Christmas.

If I don't improve quickly, I'll not be able to cook Christmas Eve breakfast at Mom's.

Caitlin and Olivia are presently baking cookies for an ornament swap party tomorrow night so at least it smells a little like the holiday season.

And yesterday I had to take Addy to the vet because her skin's been broken out for days and the vet told me she's allergic to her food and gave me lots of medicine and now she has to eat some expensive salmon based dog food until her skin improves. Ummmm what? This pound hound will be eating better than any of the rest of us.

I'm just not sure how much more merriment I can take.