“Merry Christmas to You…”

(sung to the tune of “Happy Birthday to you”)

Merry Christmas to You,

We've had the stomach flu,

Not much else to do,

but run after kids with a bucket or two.

(following commentary by Lee)

So, our first Christmas in our new house has been eventful to say the least.

Emie began the festivities by barfing on the new couch while opening presents on Christmas eve. She is such a mild mannered little thing –that it really didn’t faze her too much. We cleaned her up and kept on going. At first, we thought maybe it was an adverse reaction to egg nog and crab dip. Two days later proved that to be untrue. Sidebar, the boys wanted to try egg nog. It wasn’t much of a hit – but our daughters from Ukraine loved it! Poor Emie had a rocky night – two baths between midnight and six AM give you some idea of the fun that was in store for us. .

It was with military precision that David and Annie threw up within 30 seconds of each other on Saturday. Within 2 hours, Karen, Lee, David, Annie, Katie and Daniel had all fallen victim to Santas’ revenge. The next 24 hours are somewhat of a blur – but there were up to 4 barfapaloozas going on at one time during the night. Needless to say, Sunday was a day of rest here. The biggest activity was either changing the movie in the DVD player or switching the ice maker from crushed to cubed ice.

Sam was our nurse during the next 24 hrs – taking orders, making food, and generally being a very helpful little guy. We thought maybe he was going to squeak through without being sick – but it was not to be. Early Monday morning – the cries of daddy, daddy – help came out. Thanks to Karen’s good planning – Sam was armed with a bucket, bed on the floor, towels all handy and just about as prepared as one can be.

And not to be outdone – Andrew wasn’t feeling good a week ago – he had been back to Mayberry to visit friends for the weekend and came home ill –he got the same flu twice (maybe) – big bummer.

Some lessons learned. . . .

First, bathmats are excellent shields for all foul things that come from the stomach – they are rubber backed, generally pretty thick and can be thrown in the washer. With 4 bathrooms, an average of 2 or 3 bathmats/bathroom – you can cover a lot of floor with these handy little shields.

Second, if the night looks tough – cut the losses, put all the sickies in one room – so they can be in misery together. This is where the bathmats come in – gather all from the house – and put them on the floor – making a mosaic of bathmats. Rim the bathmats with towels and blankets and have ice cream buckets handy. Place the sick ones inside the little fortress and wait.

Third, get ready for the action. During this long night, I learned that one has been 2 and 10 seconds to get to the floor before you are really needed – depending on the child, so it is possible to grab one more wink of sleep before the bucket is really needed – just don’t be late.

Fourth, on your way to the bathroom for your own distresses – watch out for the bathmat maze 4 kids who are temporarily living there and grab a bucket on the way.

We don’t wish this on anyone – but it has been our last 4 days – we are thankful to be alive and on the mend.

Today, (our 19th wedding anniversary) was spent cleaning, sanitizing, bleaching, washing, disinfecting and generally chasing all those germs out into the MN cold.

We did take time tonight to rewatch our wedding video – from December 29th, 1990 and were reminded of the vows we took in front of family, friends and our God “for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part.”

Who were those young kids getting married? Happy 19th and I am looking forward to many, many, more. . . .