Running in Circles

Wow, for over a month now I feel like we've been running in circles! December was a month that was jam packed with challenges, activities, sickness and almost anything else you can imagine. Most days I felt like I was on a treadmill at the highest incline and there was no emergency stop button, oddly enough I even had the image that I was the hamster on the wheel going round and round with no hope of getting off the wheel.

What happened? Where do I begin? The first weekend in December we were at a birthday party, correction, two toddler birthday parties back to back on a Saturday and then we raced home to watch a football game...so we were busy, so what, right? Well that was the beginning of our month of illness.

The day after the birthday party I had chills, fever, diarrhea and nausea. So I quarantined myself to our bedroom, put my hubby in charge of the kids and drank lots of fluids. I thought that would be enough to keep everyone else well and I would recover quickly. Two days later I was better but our daughter was sick. Another 24 hours and our son now had the stomach bug. By the time the kids were well I had caught it again, aghhhh!

That unfortunate episode which helped me lose 4 pounds in 2 weeks also helped me regain those 4 plus 2 more. Then MC got sick with croup which was followed by her first ear infection. Let me just warn you right now, 2 year olds and steroids don't mix well, at all. I'm not kidding! Then MC was well but then HP, our 4 month old, got croup and just to make things more interesting he also got an ear infection.

We spent Christmas Eve visiting our neighbors in shifts while one of us stayed home with the sick kids. Unfortunately, we had to spend New Year's Eve in shifts too. Then my brother came into town for a visit and his first introduction to our 4 month old. But as luck would have it he and his fiance' became sick too.

At times, I was thinking we should return all of our Christmas gifts and use the funds to build a bubble. But now its January and we're currently all well and as time allows I'm hoping to tell you about our nightmare experience with the Christmas tree infestation, how we had Christmas on a shoestring budget and how much I'm enjoying our new toy the Xbox 360 with Kinect.