The Good and the Bad; (the Sleep and the Sickness)

The "dessert potluck", after Juniper's spring concert.  Rile them up, then send them home sugared

Happy Victoria Day to all my fellow Canadians! I am sad to report, however, that from my particular window on the world, the day is not super celebratory.This has been what you might call a difficult past week. The kind of week that holds a whole lot of expectations and potential, and then gets completely bowled over sideways by sickness.  I am currently sitting here, exhausted, having dealt with a little boy who was beside himself all morning long with pain and exhaustion. The problem is I know EXACTLY how he feels, but can do almost nothing about it.  But I won't spend a whole post complaining - nothing is ever all bad.  There is a lot of good amongst the yuck, as well.  So this post will be devoted to both sides of the coin - the good and the bad.

Finding small items for her new exploring magnifier

Posing with the results

The GOOD:  As you might remember from last week, Juniper was sick.  She was complaining of a sore throat, a headache, and an earache for what seemed like an exceptionally long time (like, 5 or 6 days).  This, coupled with only a low-grade fever, made me speculate that when she kept wanting to stay home from school, there were larger issues at hand (revolving around a new school, trying to muddle through French Immersion etc).  I am now pleased to announce that my concerns were unfounded.  Not only is she now super duper happy to be back at school, I can say with a large amount of confidence that she was really and truly sick.  Much sicker than she seemed. And not only that, she was an amazing trooper about the whole thing.

The BAD:  My confidence on that particular issue comes from first hand experience.  Just as Juniper was starting to come around, the rest of us started to succumb.  The symptoms were just as Juniper had described.  And though they may sound relatively innocuous, let me assure you this thing is fierce.  My sore throat started on Wednesday, and it is now Monday, and has yet to disappear.  During the worst day (Thursday), I couldn't even function.  I was either tossing and turning with chills and sweats and fever dreams in bed, or popping pain medication.  I couldn't talk without crying.  Some combo of the super severe sore throat coupled with the head and the ears made the pain almost unmanageable - I, (who rarely take an Advil for even a headache), was popping at least three on a 4-hour schedule, and it still seemed to do very little to help.  And then there is the sleep issue - what your body needs most in such a state is sleep.  But it is next to impossible to do so. Not during the day or at night.

Me and Linden, both miserable on the couch

 The GOOD:  We had visitors the week!  There was a wedding going on this past weekend, and both my sister Andrea (the maid of honour), and my parents were invited.  So Andrea and Dinesh (both of whom we never get to see), flew from the west coast for the event, my parents drove down from Fredericton, and even my sister Faye showed up yesterday afternoon - not for the wedding, but to drive back to Fredericton for awhile with my parents.  Juniper, as you can imagine, has been over the moon about the whole thing. And, an unexpected bonus - when I was at my sickest, I had back-up.  Hurrah!

The BAD:  Ummmm - except for Juniper , the rest of of us have been almost too sick to enjoy the visit.  We've all rallied at various points, however, so it has not been a complete loss.  We did all manage to make it out for a big delicious group dinner last night (which was not looking promising for awhile), so that's a bonus.

Eating strawberries and enjoying the deck and the new ball

Juniper shows off her fancy dinner dress (a hand-me-down from Yvon's daughter, straight from the '80s!)

Posing with Andrea and Dinesh at dinner, before they hopped on a plane.  Linden doesn't look sick, does he?  He mostly rallied for the dinner, but you should see him this morning.

The GOOD:  With respect to sleeping, this house is one giant mountain better than our last one. There are three whole bedrooms upstairs, meaning that the kids each get their own, and (gasp), Clark and I get to share one again.  Amazing!  Also, when visitors come, we can put them up in the nicely finished basement (where my parents are right now), and even in my little office if they are willing to squeeze in (as Faye is currently doing).  

The BAD:  So far the arrangement hasn't been completely satisfactory.  Neither kid is used to sleeping on their own, which means we often get visitors at night.  More than once.  From each kid.  Therefore, no one is actually sleeping all that well.  Which goes a long way toward explaining this awful, prolonged illness.  In fact, for the last three nights, Clark has been camping out on Linden's floor to try and minimize sleep disturbance/maximize sleep potential. Not that it's actually working, as this particular illness does not let you sleep.  It is a reminder of why we had our particular Wood's Hole sleeping arrangements in the first place.  I think this is one of those situations that just needs a bit of time to sort itself out, but holy crap it is a difficult thing to weather in the meantime.

The restaurant from last night was right beside the airport.  We therefore spent a lot of time post-dinner watching planes land and take off.

Riveted

Pretending to be planes

And with that, I will leave you, with hopefully better tidings next week.  If Linden can kick this things in the next couple of days, he's going to try out a home daycare this week! That holds much promise.  See you then!