We have been battling a bout of walking pneumonia since before Christmas. It started with Sylas the week before Christmas. He came down with aches, chilling, and tickly chest cough. Friday night, December 21st, I started chilling when I went to bed. Unfortunately I had to work the weekend and the holiday so there was no calling in to work for me. I had aches in my back and head so I took some Tylenol before work Saturday. By the time I got there, I had broken out in a sweat, so I knew that I had a fever. I started in with the tickly chest cough that night. I had a headache nearly every day because of the incessant coughing. Ivan came down with it a day or two after Christmas. Amalia didn’t get it until after New Years on Wednesday. She had a rough day, crying and wanting to be held and paced around the floor. By this point, Sylas was getting much better, only coughing at bedtime and back to his usual self. Ivan was on the mend, still having a bad nose though but no more fevers or moping around. I wasn’t getting any better – if anything, I felt worse. Javier came down with it over the first weekend in January. Its now the 10th and I’m just now getting over this crap. Friday evening I had terrible pain in my ear with fluid and I knew that my ear drum had ruptured. I ended up going to the doctor Monday and got on antibiotics for an ear infection/sinus infection. I’m still pretty hoarse because I have still been coughing a lot. Amalia was so much better yesterday. Her nose is not runny now and she wasn’t terribly clingy. Hopefully Javier can get on the mend and we will be out of the woods.

It has been exhausting. Not only tending to the kids’ needs and trying to keep track of who had what medicine when, but myself feeling like I was ran over by a truck. Javier had been working every day all day, except for Christmas and New Year. So I was alone tending to sick kiddos, while sick myself. I desperately needed rest, but duty called….and called….and called. I’ve cleaned up vomit that covered the kitchen floor, my bed and the carpet – all separate occasions by the way- all because the poor kiddos had coughing fits to the point of throwing up.

It has been warmer the last few weeks too which has been a bummer because none of us felt like getting out and enjoying it. Of course, cue the first cold, below freezing day, and the furnace craps out on us. Yesterday the house got down to 62 degrees and the thermostat indicated that the furnace was running. After checking, flipping breakers and changing batteries, it was time to call the landlord. He sent an HVAC guy this morning and it was decided that the motor went out in it. We had a similar problem last year, but it didn’t completely quit working, it was just leaking water everywhere and barely blowing. So it has now been fixed and the house is heated once again. Thank goodness for my parents. They let us borrow their space heater for the night, because nobody could come fix it until morning. I have two heaters that I dug out and placed in the living room. I closed all of the doors upstairs and put mom’s heater in our bedroom. I ended up turning the oven on for a little bit to take the chill off. By bedtime, I had gotten it up to 68-69 degrees. The boys slept on the couch last night in fuzzy jammies so that I wouldn’t have to heat their room and conserve some heat. This morning when I got ready for work I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was 72 degrees inside. I worried that it would get too cold. It was only supposed to be 18 degrees outside – the coldest night this week. I’m glad it all turned out ok and its over now.

I’ve had several things on my to-do-list for the new year that have gotten put off because of this sickness. I’m hoping that maybe after this weekend I can get things on track again. Javier’s birthday is Saturday and we planned a date day and a night in a hotel. I need it, and I think he does too. I have been wanting to write a couple posts about some “resolutions” that I’d like to do. You all know that I’m not into resolutions because I think it shouldn’t take a new year to start something that you want to change. I just want to get my life on track a little bit better in various ways, so I’ll be sharing that sometime soon. But I need this weekend off. And I’m going to go enjoy it to the fullest.