Such A Winters' Day: Still Not Funny

After Aubree seemed so much revived upon getting IV fluids, I again thought we'd turned the corner on her illness. And once again, I was wrong- she didn't really get better until Wednesday afternoon. By mid-day Monday (Christmas Eve), more family members began succumbing to the Super-Bug (we realized that when our families got together, we brought three separate strains of illness: one from Aubree, one from Tyson, and one from Elizabeth. Super Convergence = Super Nasty). The symptoms were pretty consistent - headache, fever, cough, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea (which we soon dubbed "1.5" - not quite #1 and not quite #2... trust me, by the end of these posts, you'll appreciate the euphemism).

She was at least able to make it upstairs for a little while...

We had lots of grand plans for the day, but it passed primarily managing the basics. Kira wanted to set up a Christmas tree in her basement, and in a fit of generosity and good-will, allowed the kids to decorate it all by themselves. They loved that!

I also remember having a conversation with my mom about how well Thane was handling being at Kira's. At home, Thane has earned the nickname Mr. Contrary, but in our two days at Kira's he'd been happy, and pleasant, and down-right agreeable. I mused, "I wonder what it is about this environment that seems to work so well for him?"

When evening arrived, we gathered up the healthies for our traditional Christmas Eve Nativity Scavenger Hunt. Aubree wasn't feeling well enough to join us, which was too bad because 1) she'd really been looking forward to it and had been practicing to perform Silent Night for weeks, and 2) we really could've used her as an example/calming influence for the other 8 children, aged 4 and under. All in all, it went reasonably well. Despite the chaos, the kids enjoyed scouring the house for the clues and nativity figurines and we even managed to feel the spirit at occasional moments.

Everyone watching a video of Mary, Mother of Jesus

Grandma was dubbed the scripture reader

Cute Anna admiring the nativity figures

The kids drawing pictures of Baby Jesus in the stable

After the scavenger hunt, we enjoyed the traditional Christmas Eve lasagna feast, courtesy of Mom and Daniel.

Thane "helping" Dylan make the brownies

After dinner we loaded into cars to drive down to a Christmas lights exhibit in Spanish Fork. Dylan and Lauren kindly volunteered to stay home with the sick kids. The park was spectacular! We were so impressed with the variety and elaborateness of the displays.

Halfway through the park drive, Thane piped up from the backseat, "I want to go home!" At first I didn't think much of it (typical, contrary Thane). But when he repeated his request with increasing conviction, it hit me - "He's sick too." Rats. There went the final shred of hope that it was food poisoning, not the flu. By the time we got home, Thane had a major fever and wouldn't even touch the brownies he'd been so mesmerized by previously. (You know how most kids get irritable and cranky right before they get sick? Since irritable and cranky are status quo for Thane, is it possible that a negative times a negative made a positive, thus explaining his happy temperament the previous days? *wink.)

Once everyone got home and the kids were all asleep, it was time for last-minute Christmas elfing. I'd finished all my elfing before the trip (which made Christmas Eve very, very nice...I'll have to try to do that again in future Christmases), so I got to help my sisters and stay up chatting. Fun! Before finally going to bed, we determined that "Christmas" could start at 7:30 the next morning.

The next morning I awoke to Bryce staring at me, whimpering. "Oh no!" I thought, "not another one!" Thankfully, he'd just bumped his head when he stood up, but Aubree and Thane were still down for the count. I checked my clock and was surprised to see it was already 8 am! Everyone was upstairs still and they'd decided to have breakfast first (generously, to let the sick people rest).

Traditional sour dough waffles with strawberries and whip cream

I was impressed with how patient all the kids were, though I'm sure it helped that all the presents were downstairs behind closed doors. It was almost 10:30 am before we finally made it down to open presents.

Aubree perked up just enough to be carried into the family room.

Thane spent the morning huddled in Mark's lap, only consenting to open an occasional gift.

We'd planned ahead of time for each kid to get 4 presents (from parents/Santa) and one from Grandma. Despite this moderate amount of presents, it still took forever (in a fun way) to get through all the gifts on a one-at-a-time, youngest-to-oldest basis. I'll cover Christmas Day details in another post, but one gift must be mentioned...

Baby Harp #3, coming in August!

After finishing the first round of present opening, we had a break for lunch, then Colleen and her family came and we were right back at it - opening gift exchange gifts. Once all the presents were opened, the day slowed down. Those who needed naps slept, and others prepped dinner or tried to do damage control (aka clean up a little). The highlight of the day was getting to talk to Ian, who is serving his mission in Ghana. He insisted he was speaking quickly, but still had a noticeable accent and slowness to his speech. He seems like he's doing so well and he's such a great example to all of us!

After announcing her pregnancy, Katie was hit hard with her first bout of morning sickness. Only, (you guessed it) it wasn't really morning sickness at all. One more point for the Flu.

In the middle of the stillness, we learned that the turkey was almost done. The fire alarms told us. The shrieking was piercing enough to send even the sickest fleeing from their beds into the freezing snow outdoors.

The edge of Thane's nose was a little raw from being wiped, he insisted on wearing a band-aid, which only served to make him look even more pitiful

Christmas dinner was excellent, but by the end, Anna was starting to get sick too...

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Christmas night was no fun. That's when Thane's illness progressed from the fever/headache into the vomiting. And Thane's no good at vomiting. He'd sit up in bed moaning, but as the pain intensified (and the retching commenced), he dive head first, this way and that, back onto the covers. Which, as you might imagine, made trying to catch his puke in the bowl an exercise in gymnastics. "Thane!" we'd instruct, "you can lay back down after you're done throwing up!" "Me IS done!" he'd shout, then immediately puke again. Rinse, repeat.

Wednesday was another stay-home-and-take-care-of-sick-people day. Kira made aebelskivers for breakfast and Aubree only ate 3, which is evidence enough she was still sick (and she later got a second look at them....). Dylan and Lauren had to head back to Idaho for work (they managed to escape unscathed!) and the Harps were also supposed to head back to California so Seth could go to work. Katie and Anna were in no condition for travel, so we made arrangements for them to get a ride home with Mom later in the week. So, boo that they were sick, but Yay that they could stay longer!

I managed to leave the house, but only to go to Walmart to get supplies to make dinner and to get medicine for the sickos (I begged my doctor for more Zofran, which turned out to be hugely needed). Thane spent the day begging to go to bed and sleep. Yeah - not normal.

Wednesday night Mark's sister Amy braved the quarantine house and came over for dinner. It was so fun to see her and everyone enjoyed catching up.

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By Thursday Aubree was pretty well recovered, but Thane was still bad and Bryce came down with a fever, and Piper got sick too. Here we go again. We spent another fun-filled day indoors. (That being said, while it was no fun to spend our vacation inside sick and at someone else's home, it was nice to have company and meals and lots and lots of help.) I started to get sick as well, head-ache and extreme fatigue. There was a small part of me that was glad. "If I get sick," I reasoned, "I can get antibodies to give to Graham," because my biggest fear was that he would get hammered with the flu (he managed to escape with just extended cold symptoms). Thankfully, my illness was very short-lived and mild.

In the afternoon, Stew got on his awesome snow-plow and made a sledding ramp for the well kids.

They bundled up and enjoyed some time playing in the cold, white stuff.

When Thane woke up from a nap feeling much better, he went outside briefly with Mark begging for a "snowman fight!" Bryce was disappointed he couldn't participate.

Speaking of Bryce... Behind Kira's house is a railroad track, which - of course - Bryce noticed as soon as we arrived. Kira informed him that trains only come twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The train didn't come on Tuesday (Christmas), so Bryce was extra vigilant on Thursday. He frequently told Mark, "You listen for chugging, I'll look for the train." He was thrilled when the train did make its appearance on Thursday morning, and kept waiting for it to make its return trip that afternoon. In an unintentional trick, Kira's phone alert was a train whistle. Every time it went off, Bryce would fly to the window, sickness notwithstanding, to watch for the train.

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Friday we planned to spend the day in Salt Lake. We were still expecting Bryce to get the full blown flu (miraculously, he never did!), so I stayed home with him and Katie and her sick girls. Everyone else seemed much improved, so they piled into two cars and headed up to meet Colleen and her family for an early dinner at Costa Vida.

While they were gone, Katie and I did a fun foam craft with Bryce and Anna. Turns out I sent the wrong son.

A couple hours later, I got a text from Kira that said simply, "Tucanos Repeat." Apparently Thane wasn't quite as "improved" as we'd thought; he vomited all over his tray. Mark handled it well. After cleaning it up he told Kira, "I didn't even lose my appetite." Shortly thereafter, he took Thane into the bathroom to change his diaper. When they didn't return for 1/2 an hour, the rest of the group grew worried. Thane had 1.5-ed out his diaper, all the way up to his neck, and Mark was trying to clean him up with paper towels and without the benefit changing table. "That," Mark admitted, "made me gag." Luckily Colleen had an extra pair of snow bibs, so Thane had something to wear.

Lacking an easy way back home, they continued on to the scheduled tour of Temple Square. They took the electric train (which Thane usually would've loved) and went to admire the beautiful lights around temple square.

It was super crowded and super cold (17 degrees) and even the thick-skinned Utahns were shivering.

Poor Aubree, who doesn't have much insulation on good days, and even less after being sick for a week, was miserable. Colleen saved the day (again!) by providing a hand-warming pack for her. Thane kept begging, "I want to go back to Utah, now!"

After all that, I decided I'd had enough. Our original travel-home plans involved staying with friends, and since that was obviously out, I figured we'd better hit the road to try to be home by Sunday night (so we could take kids to the doctor on Monday if necessary). Besides, I figured, might as well take advantage of the fatigue and let the kids sleep the whole way home. Oh, it all sounded so nice in theory.

With that decided, once everyone got home and the kids were asleep, the adults tried to get in at least one game night. While playing, Thane woke up crying. Mark ran down to check, then called up, "I'm going to need reinforcements here!"

1.5 again. And again, all the way up his back, through his pajamas and through the sheets onto the mattress. Ugh!! I cleaned up Thane, and Mark and Kira took care of the bed. I'm thinking Kira just might never invite us back after that week!!

Regardless, Saturday morning we packed up and hit the road.