Flu Blues

I'd like to say that our household runs like a well oiled machine but unfortunately it is more like a pieced together, 20 year old Honda. It runs fine as long as everything stays the same, but as soon as one thing goes wrong, the whole thing falls to pieces and we are duct taping ourselves into survival mode. On any given day we can juggle grad school (both of us), full time work, being homeowners, marriage, 17 month old, neurotic dog, etc. but when one thing goes wrong it seems like we are suddenly get overwhelmed and the act is over. Well....that one thing that went wrong this week was a nasty flu bug that began already last weekend. To sum up our week.... Sunday- Ben was cranky and "fragile." He is such a happy kid so crying for no reason and throwing fits at us is uncharacteristic. We knew something was around the river bend. He also had a runny nose and what looked like the start of a cold. Monday- Ben had a rough start to the night on Sunday night, waking up several times wanting to be held and was really clingy. He finally went to sleep and I thought we were good to go. Walked into the nursery on Monday morning and before I even opened the door I smelled the awful odor of spilled stomach contents all in the crib and all over the floor. Let's just say- Monday was spent doing lots of laundry and my carpet cleaner was put to good use. Tuesday- Late Monday night Ben got a fever. At 3:00 a.m. we went into his nursery and the fever was up to 103 and Ben was shivering and his heart was racing. Scary. We managed to get the fever down and survive the night but all day Tuesday was spent dealing with fever. At one point in time during the day he cried for an hour straight...just screaming and screaming. Took him to the pediatrician and they said it must be some kind of flu and he also had double ear infections. Way to go tubes......way to work. Wednesday- Finally on the mend. Had a pretty normal day at home without too much fussiness and no unfortunate incidents. Thursday- I had barely gotten any work done in the week so Ben went to daycare and he seemed to be feeling fine. Daycare was a ghost town. All 3 of his teachers were out sick and all but 1 in his classroom were out sick. Most had been out all week with the exact same thing. Whatever this plague is, it spread and pretty much knocked out his school. They said he had a good day and he was in good spirit when Brian picked him up. He hadn't been eating much besides crackers, toast etc but devoured a bowl of peas for dinner. Unfortunately the peas reappeared shortly there after. Friday- Home today and we're doing ok all things considered. Ben seems healthy but we're laying low. Brian called saying he wasn't feeling too hot- but neither of us have all week so i'm not surprised. I've spent the week pretty much banking on the fact that we'll get sick. So far- so good and praying it continues. So there's our week in a nutshell. Explains the absence of blogs until today. Normally- we juggle and do fine. This week we're juggling with 40 pound medicine balls and keep getting clobbered. Hoping for better days.