Torn

There are several particularly stressful weeks at school.  The order varies with each year, but they always, the first week, the last week and each of the two conference weeks.

This is definitely one of those weeks.  We have after school conferences Tuesday and Thursday.  Daycare was closed on Monday (our daycare mom ran a marathon on Sunday!!) so Brecken hung out with my parents.  Think Chuck E. Cheese and haircut and lunch out.  Yep, that's grandparents for ya.  When I got home my dad was in the front yard with Brecken and he and I ended up mowing the lawn…in very very slow baby steps.  But he loved it.

At dinner he was too tired to even open his mouth.  Exhausted.  After dinner I pulled his clothes off and then I felt that he was burning up!!  I took his temp and it was over 102!  I gave him some medicine and gave him a bath and he was begging to go to sleep.  I knew Tuesday morning wasn't going to be pretty.  He woke up screaming at 5:00am and burning up again.  Mark stayed home with him since I HAD to be at school plus conference after.  Walking out the door knowing my baby was sick just about tore my heart out.  I wanted to stay with him.  I wanted to be the one taking care of him.  I was so torn.  My head was at school, but my heart was at home.

As if all this wasn't bad enough, Victoria got sent home at about 2:00 with a fever of 101+.  Mark came to get her.  I brought C home after school, put on more deodorant and headed back to school.  My parents came to watch V and sleeping B so C could go to Boy Scouts.

I stayed after conferences to make sub. plans.  While creating them I was kind of pissed.  Pissed I was missing school again.  Pissed I didn't know who my sub. was.  Just stressed and pissed.  I was torn again.  I needed to be at home.  And I needed to be at school.  I finally headed home.

Mark said B seemed way better in the afternoon.  V seemed way better, but when you have a fever you're supposed to stay home for 24 hrs after.  We had V & C's conference this morning.  My plan was to pick up the teachers their coffees at Caribou and then drop the boys at daycare and then have V read while we conferenced.  I was walking into daycare and C kept saying how bad his belly hurt.  I was in a hurry and walked ahead of him carrying Brecken.  Two steps into the garage and B gagged so naturally I put my hand under his chin.  No freaking crap, the kid started puking and puking into my hand.  I was down on my knees letting it over flow onto the garage floor.  I had Christian run and get paper towels.  I washed my hands (but let me tell you that is a smell that takes days to leave!) and let her know I'd be keeping all three at home today.  No need to force C to go to turn around a couple hours later when he lands in the nurse's office.  Sure enough, he did have a fever at 10am.

We picked up a couple Red Box movies and B was down for an early nap.  Man, was he feisty!  Nothing made him happy.  The big kids did some crafts (does taping hundreds of craft sticks together count as a craft?) I did laundry.  We took a loooong drive this afternoon.  We all needed to get out of the house.  I thought about driving to WI to look at leaves.  But we ended up headed north.  We went to the pumpkin patch.  It ended up being just perfect.  There were only two workers there.  The kids got to get some fresh air for a bit.  And I got a nice long car ride with everyone buckled in and mostly quiet.

As of now, not a single one had a drop of medicine today at all.  Here's hoping everyone gets a good night sleep and feels better in the morning.  I have another long day tomorrow and it would make my life so much easier if everyone was healthy and happy.  It's not a good feeling being torn.