A blizzard, a gizzard and the flu--UPDATED

I looked outside this morning and it was first raining (very typical of MN to throw you for a loop and rain in the middle of January!) and now it's turned to a blizzard.

There should be a street in there somewhere...

Luke told me he wasn't feeling well, Lucy (who had been feeling better yesterday with no fever) told me she was feeling sick again, Anna was pointing to her ears saying that they hurt and Henry was sleeping unusually late. Luke's temperature was 101.3, Lucy's was 102 and Henry was 100 when he woke up. Anna was 94.3. She has not been running a temp but insists it must be taken, yet she doesn't keep the thermometer under her arm long enough to get an accurate temp.

I'm still sick too but the fever is at least gone. My patience, which was doing so well the past couple days, is almost gone too. I have really been trying to work on my temper and yelling, so today, when I felt myself about to "lose it" after Anna was repeatedly testing her boundaries by going into the fridge and pulling out all sorts of things, I went into my room and prayed. Well, it more like *Slam!* (that was the door) and "Lord, I'm trying to teach them, but they are not learning! I can't take any more of the whining! The crying! The fighting! The teasing just to start a fight! The temperatures! The boredom! The coughing!"

Yes, my patience is gone, and the Lord got an earful. But the important thing is, the kids never heard a word of it and didn't have to suffer any of my ill mood.

I am just getting tired myself. Literally, all I hear is coughing all around me, all day and all night long. If one child isn't coughing, someone else is. And then when you get them together in one room, they all start coughing all at the same time. It does tend to grate on the nerves after a while. I know I need to keep my patience and remember the kids bad moods are due to being sick for a week. I keep reminding myself that better days are ahead.

The good news is that Dennis agreed to come home a little early today so that we can take Henry and Lucy to the Urgent Care. I'm pretty sure by the way Henry is acting and wheezing (falling asleep on the floor again) that he has pneumonia or some sort of respiratory thing going on again. As for Lucy, she seems to be fine except for the persistent fever. It might be that the doctor will do nothing for her.

In the meantime, I've gotten fed up with the flu and am ready to fight back full force with lots of cleaning and disinfecting. I've cleaned all the light switches, door knobs, baby gate, stairway railings and anything else that is touched over and over. I stripped the sick kids beds and washed the sheets, and burned washed their pjs. I've mopped all the floors with disinfectant and cleaned the bathrooms for the second time this weekend (that's a new record for me!) I'm making the kids wash their hands before they eat (I think you're supposed to do that anyway but we never remember to do that) and any time they blow their noses. And anyone who coughs into the air without coughing into their arms gets a stern reminder.

Because, really. It's time to get over the flu! I've got a blizzard outside and a bunch of sick kids and I have no idea how we're going to get to Mass. And today, I need it more than ever.

So that's the update. And by the way, there is no gizzard, I just threw that in because it rhymed with "blizzard". It's the cold medicine making me loopy, that's all.

UPDATE: After bring Lucy and Henry into Urgent Care, the doctor said that they both have influenza and that anyone else in the house who has the similar symptoms can assume that they also have influenza--which includes me and Luke.

The good news is that this time, Henry doesn't have pneumonia, but he does have an ear infection w/ the influenza. The doctor sent home a neubulizer for everyone to use. Ok, I'm off to pick up a few prescriptions now!