Best-laid Plans & Playdough
This is not what I had planned to write this week. I had a great blog half planned in my head about family rituals and how important they are. It was the perfect time to write about that, because our family has so many lovely holiday rituals and traditions. I’m sure yours does, too. We also have everyday, all-year rituals which are just as important…I had the research all ready to go and the words in my head…
…And then We ALL GOT THE FLU.
And man, did we ever get the flu. When I say we got hit, We. Got. HIT. Let me preface by clarifying that we all got our flu shots many weeks past. So when Big Girl came home from school a week ago looking pale and acting lethargic (EXTREMELY out of character for her,) I was annoyed at the timing but not super concerned. Even the next day, when she tested positive for Flu A, I was concerned but not overly so. I was definitely hoping none of the rest of us caught it, but I figured since we were all vaccinated that even if we did get it, it would likely be mild and brief.
HA. Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Seven entire days later (seven verrrry longgg days and nights later), I have learned my lesson. The flu is to be taken seriously. I have a whole new appreciation for influenza pandemics of the past.
One by one, all five of us woke in the middle of the night with raging fevers and horrific body aches. The kids all spiked on different nights. Hubby and I (OF COURSE) got hit by the flu truck in the middle of the same night. It has been absolutely nuts. We can’t even remember the last time we were so sick. There’s been vomit. There have been nose bleeds, headaches, more boxes of tissues than I can even count, and horrible, deep coughs. The fevers have been incessant and recurring - like a week-long game of fever Whack-a-Mole. We have managed nothing other than keeping these kids alive and as comfortable as possible.
We gave them an early Christmas gift so they could be miserable in matching pajamas! Big Girl threw up alllll over hers about five minutes after this photo was taken.
Poor Baby B has been unable to sleep for more than five minutes unless I am holding him and sitting upright, so I have spent all day and night on the couch holding him and also tending to Big Girl at night. Hubby has taken charge of Mr. Middle during the night. During the day we have just sort of taken turns napping when possible and writing down rotating doses of Tylenol and Motrin for five human beings, so we don’t accidentally overdose someone small.
(Pro Tip: if you are so sick you literally can’t remember the last time kids got meds or so exhausted you can’t remember the timing of the baby’s feedings, make a chart. My mother has done this for years for nursing various animals back to health, and it’s a good practice to start when exhaustion or illness takes over. At the very least, scribble down times and dosages on a scrap of paper or note them in your phone. If that is overwhelming…ask your mom to do it, like me. Haha.)
Big Girl has actually NAPPED almost every day this week (which, if you know her, is a definite S.O.S! Mayday! Red flag!) She is missing her fourth full day of school today (without last week’s snowday and two hour delay it would be six!)
An adorable but extremely worrisome sight.
But…
As miserable as it has been,
As little sleep as we have gotten,
As much as I have whined to my mom,
As sad as we were to have to cancel some pre-Christmas family plans,
…The positives keep showing up.
Various angel-neighbors have brought soup and kid medicine. Meds are out of stock all over the place in our town right now, and these angel-neighbors have literally given us their own Tylenol and checked multiple stores. My incredible dad has made and delivered supper. My selfless mom (who ALSO has this flu) brought us much-needed popsicles. We are beyond lucky to have so many people in our life providing support. We have had so many check-in texts, and those really help when you’re in the trenches! Just knowing there is someone “out there” thinking of you is a special bit of positive magic all its own. Our village majorly stepped up! (I wrote about them once…check it out!)
We have soaked up many hours of snuggles, and as pitiful as those sick babes have been, it has not stopped me from enjoying our snuggles!
How could I fail to enjoy this at least a little bit?
No one has ended up at the emergency room, although Big Girl came close. The pediatricians have fit us in every time we have needed to be seen (and I mean multiple visits and calls), which is no small feat these days.
We have the ability to take the time off work and not lose our jobs (not everyone is so lucky.)
The kids have been REMARKABLY kind to one another. In their more energetic moments, they have played so nicely. They have been empathetic with one another. It’s been amazing.
Sick as she was, she was still trying to keep Baby B happy at the doctor.
And the biggest positive that I can’t stop thinking about: this is a finite event for us. This is a limited-time thing. We do not have chronically ill children. It’s not life-threatening. We will recover and go on about our normal life and this will be but a blip on the radar of our past. I know many families who are not so lucky, and I do not take our normally-good-health for granted for a single second.
These next two are not necessarily conventional positives (ha) but I am grateful for kid TV! We have watched every single episode of Bluey ever created, because although I am a constant proponent of reading aloud to your kids, I am also human and I am majorly sick. Also, Baby B has discovered the joy of popsicles. Like actual popsicles with actual sugar in them (although I will say they are natural fruit juices with no artificial dye, because that’s a hard line for me). I just didn’t have the energy or attention span to make breastmilk pops or fruit pops or something baby-appropriate with no added sugar. This is another thing we will file under, “Things we do with our third child that we would never have done with our first.”
Such is life.
I have tried really hard to do at least one activity with the kids every day we’ve been sick. I haven’t managed it everyday, but most days we have tried hardto spend at least a few minutes doing something that isn’t watching Bluey. We have had an indoor snowball fight with cotton balls. We have gotten out in the snow for ten minutes or so - twice! We have even managed some baking. Keep in mind that each of these things took less than half an hour - the rest of each of those days we pretty much didn’t leave the couch. It’s amazing how exhausting having a fever can be.
Mr. Middle and I kneading some bread dough!
Today I was bound and determined to make this cranberry playdough that’s been on my list of things to do with my little at-home preschool. Obviously we haven’t been having school here for a week now, so I gave up and did it with my own kiddos. It was a lot of fun!
I’m always on the hunt for new playdough recipes (I actually wrote about this once), because as you may know, I am crazy about sensory play and the many ways in which it benefits kids. This Christmas-y cranberry version really appealed to me and I’ve been really excited to try it!
As it turned out, it was much easier to make playdough with my own kids as opposed to my school kids. It’s all about the ages. My school kids are 3.5, 3, and 2.5 years old. (And the two babies, but they don’t help make playdough.) My own kids are 7 and 2.5 (and 10 months, but Baby B wasn’t involved.) I’m telling you, adding a 7-year-old and subtracting two toddlers was…well, pretty life-changing, as playdough-making goes! I was able to fully stand back, rock Baby B and simply talk Big Girl and Mr. Middle through measuring and adding and mixing all the ingredients. They did every single thing by themselves.
We added actual cranberry juice (which you could make from cranberries if you aren’t all battling the flu and you have the energy - that’ll be next year for us.) We also added vegetable glycerin, which the recipe called for…I’m not really sure how it affected the texture, but I did really love the feel of this playdough - it is very unique.
The science of this activity was also really interesting. We were able to talk about a mixture as opposed to a solution (no chemical reactions here, not even any heat added to make this.) This is just a mixture - none of the elements added actually change, they just get mixed together. Theoretically, they could all be separated at the molecular level. The most observable moment occurred when we combined the wet ingredients. The kids could see that the oil did not mix at all with the water, and it was really fun to see how the food coloring also didn’t mix in at all until we poured the wet ingredients into the dry.
When the mixing was completed, I gave them Christmas cookie cutters, some tips of pine branches, and some plastic Christmas balls, just to give them some seasonal and unique tools with which to play. They loved this!
As sick as they still are, they were pretty tired by the time we had finished making it, and they had to take a break on the couch before they actually played with it. But once they did, they loved it! This dough is very soft, not at all like our normal playdough recipe. And now it’s ready to go for tomorrow, which will save me from having to plan anything to do tomorrow. In fact, it should last a few weeks! Whew.
So our gifts aren’t wrapped, our cards aren’t mailed, our house is a wreck and the kitchen is full of dishes…but we have cranberry playdough to play with, and we are mostly on our way to being healthy again. And that’s enough. More than enough, really.
I know you have your own nightmare flu stories to share. Let’s hear ‘em! And if you try this playdough recipe and have any tips for the rest of us, please share.