Grateful For Washing Machines

It was not a good night in the Campbell house. Perhaps it even goes back most of a week now.

I think I told the story here of coming home with Emma. The night before we came home, our six year old Alex threw up eight times! He was better (mostly) by the time we got home, but we were certainly leery. Ian was next. That night he threw up just once, but it was gross... and it was on the bed I had just put new sheets on for him! :-)

Well, thankfully, we have a washing machine.

This week has seen its share of laundry loads. Normal loads, sick loads, many loads. We do have seven people in this house now. We also did a load or two of clothes for Jen and the new baby to wear, brought out from their cold, dark storage containers.

Well, last night was a doozy.

First, I fell asleep on the couch watching the hockey highlights from the night (seriously... they were almost over...) and was awoken by an angry Jen's voice, "Greg... Greg!... GREG!!" That's not pleasant. Nor is the reason she was calling me. First, she was hurting for some unknown reason, and Emma was not wanting to sleep, which made it worse. But the reason I was summoned? Julia had thrown up. Time for Dad to clean up!

I cleaned her up and was going to deal with the rest in the morning. Went straight to bed and Jen was in and out with Emma, and I noticed that my stomach really did not feel very good. I don't usually throw up, so I wasn't worried about that, but it was sort of difficult to go to sleep.

Within half an hour, Julia was back. She had thrown up again. This all started at 12:30am or so, and continued until I think 3:33am. Probably four or five times I went in, cleaned up the baby, and got new sheets, towels, blankets, sleeping bags... whatever I could find! Meanwhile, at about 2:30, I felt awful and spent some time in the bathroom myself. (Strangely, I did not throw up, but I thought I was going to... and when I "tried"... nothing happened but I felt amazingly better!)

Well after all of this, we have discovered that our tummy troubles are not gone... Julia, Kirsten, and Dad all have... ya know. The other side. Yeah. Not pretty.

I also came to find out that Jen slept downstairs much of the night, trying to get comfortable... didn't really sleep much at all. Still very sore, but also had the chills. :-( What's going on??!?!

Jen just left for the doctor - for the regular one week check up for her and baby. Should be interesting... :-)

I just finished cleaning up all the throw up covered clothing (I am very thankful for washing machines...) and doing the dishes from the night before so we could do the dishes from breakfast after I gave Julia a bath because she had gotten throw up in her hair after I folded the laundry I already had done yesterday to make room for the laundry I needed to do today and now the kids are done with breakfast and waiting for the next event of the day...

Did I mention that I am grateful for washing machines?

(Trying to keep a positive outlook here...) ;-)

Sickness Invades The Campbell Home

Jen (the pregnant one) has been sick (on top of the discomfort of pregnancy) over the past couple weeks with a few various ailments, but it didn't stay with her. Kirstie has been complaining of ear/head/neck pain off and on for almost a week now. This morning, Kirstie was still very lethargic, and her oldest brother Ian joined her in her illness-induced lethargy.

The sickness canceled our plans for today. Which were quite plentiful.

Well, the two other kids and myself were not feeling sick at all - in fact quite the opposite for the "evens" (kids #2 and #4...). They were quite loud, boisterous, and generally making life more miserable for their sick siblings.

I decided to take the healthies out to Wendy's where a group of friends generally gather every Sunday afternoon. Was even hoping to catch our nephew there who turned 20 today! (Yes... I am old...) :-) No luck there, but there were about 6 or 7 families represented, so it was definitely a nice visit for Dad who is a "people person." :-)

Untill...

Half way through our time there, Alex started showing signs of lethargy as well, and even ended up laying his head down on the table at one point. :-( He removed himself from the group (sat at a nearby table, not very like Alex with his friends) and just seemed to be getting exactly what everyone else had.

Scary thing? So did I.

As we were leaving, all of a sudden, my neck started aching, and I just felt very weird... maybe light-headed, but not that bad. Just tingly all over. Made it through that, enjoyed lunch, but felt a little strange all the way home. When we got home we put the new sickie in bed, and that's when it hit me.

COLD!!! I could not have been colder! I got under 6 or 7 blankets, all the way under, and turned the heat up! If you know me, you KNOW that something is wrong! :-) I really didn't feel lethargic, but still had an achy body all over, and had the chills som'n fierce!

So, I had some tea, put on my warmest sweatshirt, and took the rest of the day a bit easier.

Dinner was funny. I just reheated some leftovers for all the sickies (which is all but Julia!) and no one really wanted much of anything. :-) I still ate a decent amount, but definitely didn't taste right.

Right now, at a VERY early hour for me, I'm gonna down some NyQuil® and hit the sack! Might not wake up till 10 tomorrow! :-)

Here's hopin'!

Bad Water

It would seem that our little wind storm a few days back did more than knock down tree limbs, knock out power, and darken a 9-year-old's birthday plans. I heard through the rumor mill yesterday, and confirmed by public notice today that we have potentially sickening drinking water in our little town here!

(That could explain Jen's sickness yesterday, I suppose...)

So, this is my public service announcement for the day, I suppose. If you live in (or near?) Palmyra, NY... BOIL THE WATER!

JUST IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING.... This ended by the end of the next day. So, you don't have to keep boiling your water anymore... :-)

Battling a Belly Bug, Bushed and Beleaguered

So what I failed to mention in my long account yesterday of the football side of our weekend is the fact that Alex was battling the belly bug (some call it a stomach bug, but belly made for an extra "b" word...) on Saturday, and his brother followed him on Sunday. We haven't had any more "eruptions" since Sunday afternoon, but none of us felt quite right yesterday.

The weirdest part is the symptoms. You know you're sick when your breakfast comes back up, but when there's nothing but "not feeling right"... it's hard to pin down. None of us was really hungry yesterday. I noticed also that nothing tasted good when I did eat. The kids were all very cranky, whiny, something... And... for some reason I have a scratchy throat that I can't seem to get rid of.

Very strange.

Perhaps that is the price you pay for that fun weekend? :-) Click the linked words above. It's worth the read :-) (And, I'm sure Jen will get around to posting photos from the weekend on our website as well. :-)

Foggy

Today is a bit of a fog. I know the Sabres won last night... that much I can remember. I also know that we will be getting a new window and a new front door (the outside one) installed relatively soon. It will look nice, but mainly it should save us some bucks in the winters. And the summers? I want to check into grants for EneryStar home improvements... that may be helpful.

But mostly, today is a fog. I have this nasty head thing that set in throughout the afternoon yesterday. Stuffy (and leaky) sinuses, a bad cough (when I cough) and just overall grogginess. Ugh. It's not very fun.

I don't know if any of this made sense, but...

Sabres are up 1-0 over the Islanders! (I do feel a sweep coming...)

My Face Hurts, and Spooky Dreams

This past weekend, we went over to Buffalo to celebrate with a friend (who is also now our nieces' grandpa...) his 20 years of working with the same church where Jen's dad was for some 30 plus years. There were lots of blasts from the past. It was quite nice.

The only not nice thing was Kirsten kept complaining of being slightly sick.. like she needed to throw up maybe. That's always a bad thing... We made it through the night without that, and a very tired Kirstie fell asleep on the hour and a half ride home. All seemed well.

At about 12:30, all had gone to bed, but I was still putting some things away, cleaning up, etc... when I heard Kirstie crying. I went into her room and she was still asleep... so I just helped her get under her blankets again, I figured she was just really, really tired. She went right back to sleep... all was well.

I went downstairs to watch a science show I had been wanting to watch for a very long time. I'm sure I saw most of it, but near the end, I fell asleep... maybe around 1:15 or 1:30? I was out for a long time, but just before I woke up, I had a very clear dream where I was waking up and Jen said to me, "Good, now you can help Kirstie." Our clock's hourly chime woke me up, and I realized where I was - shook off the strange ending to that dream (though I did check to see if Kirstie was crying again or something - and headed upstairs.

All was quiet, until I reached the top of the steps. As my foot touched the top step, Kirstie started crying again!! I was a little freaked out the my wife had told me in a dream that I needed to help Kirsten. But, actually, that made me take her cry more seriously. I went in and found her uncovered again, and as I picked her up to get her blankets, I noticed she was burning up!!! No wonder she was crying!!!

She definitely had a fever, though I couldn't prove that, since I had no idea where to even look for the thermometer..... :-) I did check in the "normal" place, but, not many things are in the "normal" place in our house... :-) Anyway, I got her some fever reducing medicine (the last of it) and brought her into the bathroom to give that to her. She started crying again, louder this time. Jen comes in and just stands at the door of the bathroom for a second. No words are spoken. About 3 seconds later, she turns around and just goes back to bed! That was a funny scene. :-)

Kirstie manages to get the medicine down, followed by a tiny cup of cold water (she really likes that part... even at three in the morning!) and I got her back in bed. I was a bit disturbed by having been told in a dream that my daughter needed help, so I continued to chat with God about her and whether she would be alright. I decided to wait till 3:30 then go check on her.

At precisely 3:30, I went back into her room and checked her forehead... she was cooling right down. She was still awake, so we asked God together to help her rest so she could get better. She smiled, I left, He helped, we went to sleep.

Fast forward to lunch time. The day had been pretty good so far. Kirstie did not eat much for breakfast... but she seemed to be doing fine. During lunch however, she had gotten down to use "the potty" and while contemplating the deep things of life on said potty... she says, "My face hurts. I need to rest so it can get better."

"Your face hurts?"

"Yeah, right here," she pointed to her forehead. "I need to rest so it can get better."

:-)

So, I took her hand and we went up to her room and asked God to take away her face hurt so she could sleep. He did, she did, and all was better.

Kirstie did ask one more time that day if she could rest so her face wouldn't hurt, but it seems the face hurting ended by Tuesday. We're glad for that.

It is so fun to hear the things that come from a two-year-old's heart out through their mouths. It's kinda weird to hear that comes from the mouth of your spouse in your dreams sometimes.... :-)