We've been sick!

It all started with Josh, a slight fever, coughing, sore throat for two days. But you know, with so many people in the house it is never that easy lol! Next was Sam, then Dan, followed by Ava and Bre. Each two days at a time! Just when I thought the contagion was contained, another kid would pop up sick. A day or two for a break, then Emily and Rachel. Sigh.

Next thing you know, Nathan is sick. :-( Poor little guy did not take it well, had a fever for three or four days, much harder time breathing and coughing. As time passed, it sounded less like croup and more like something worse. Just when I was starting to give up and take him to the doctor, we got snowed in! Well, three more days and he is much better. No fever, but I'm willing to bet he'll cough for a week or two more.

What makes me upset is that we always quarantine our family when someone is sick. But it is obvious that many others do not, as they are posting on facebook about how they've been sick for a week or two or even THREE, and I have seen them at church, at the grocery store, at a play group in the past day or two. Our society has trained us that it's okay to keep running, even when we should be taking it easy and letting our bodies heal. We're supposed to just pop a few pills, gurgle, take a syrup, when we should be resting, and gogogo. We're all on a hamster wheel of busy-ness, and no one bothers to think that the hamster wheel...it goes NOWHERE. And you aren't really getting ahead when you cheat yourself of rest, of love, of joy...you just get to run faster and longer.

Anyway, I could have been upset by all our plans that had to lay by the road. But instead, I used the chance to jam a stick in the hamster wheel of my life, be thankful that I was here for the kids. Now the choice is, jump back on that wheel? No thanks! Thanks Roxanne, for reminding me of that wheel, we don't see it when we're running on it, do we? It takes a special person to point that out to others lovingly.