Family Overboard

If for some reason you managed to read my 5 Minutes for Parenting post on Wednesday, you might have picked up a smidgeon of foreshadowing at the end.

Specifically, the line that said: "And I just heard someone throw up upstairs. ... Guess we won’t be making that portrait appointment after all."

The Plague. It has infested the Love Well household. Connor got it first, Natalie made it to school before spewing in her classroom. Corey's had the flu -- the real deal, influenza -- since last Saturday. (He hasn't got into work all week, which, if you know Corey, is saying something. The only other illness that sidelined him for that long was malaria.) And I? Well, I've got something -- low fever, lots of aches, mild nausea. But it doesn't fit into a neat category. Apparently, my viruses prefer that I not box them in with labels.

Which leaves the baby. She, of course, is perfectly healthy, which means while the rest of us have been sick and laying on the couch moaning, she's been ransacking the house. From the kitchen, where all my paper plates and cups are strewn around as if we threw a Mardi Gras party, to the bathroom, where every rubber band, Band-Aid and bath toy we own has been dumped out for the fun of it, our house is a disaster.

Thankfully, Connor and Natalie are better today, and I think I've turned the corner. (Corey still looks and sounds horrible, but I think he's going into work tomorrow just because he can't take a full week off. It goes against his nature.) I managed to pick up a bit of the house today, get the contaminated linens are in the wash and clean the vomit from the carpet.

But it left me wondering: How do all y'all deal when everyone in the family gets sick at the same time? This was my first experience. Since we have no family in the area, we just staggered through. Is there something I'm missing, like, perhaps, an emergency day-care for children of sick parents?

Oh! And if you don't mind, go over to 5 Minutes for Parenting and read my Wednesday post, if you haven't already. It's a little esoteric, although it made sense to me. But now I wonder if it was just the fever talking.