I recently read somewhere that rather
than having expectations and then being disappointed, discouraged,
and dissatisfied when things don't go as we plan, we should live with
an expectancy of what God can do in any situation in which we might
find ourselves. It is not easy to do this, as I discovered firsthand
this week, Christmas week, as our family had a nasty run in with a
stomach virus.
I love the Christmas season – the
carols, the lights, baking cookies, spending time with friends and
having my husband off work, doing special things with the kids,
enjoying the snow outside my window. I especially look forward to
the days that Dan has off from school and we're free to spend time
doing things as a family. This year, with Christmas being on Sunday,
Dan had off from school the entire week before Christmas, and so I
decided that the kids and I were taking off too! We had activities
planned for the week and were excited about enjoying this time.
As planned, we had our annual “Shepherd Night” on Monday. All of us dressed up like shepherds, made a tent in the living room and had supper as we pretended to be shepherds in Bethlehem and tried to imagine what the night of Jesus birth must have been like for the shepherds. This is a highly anticipated part of the Christmas season for our children, and they thoroughly enjoyed the evening.
Then on Tuesday, December 20, it hit.
The dreaded stomach flu. I walked into Grace's room to get her up
from her nap to find her covered with her lunch. Now she had eaten a
lot of oranges at lunch, and I mean A LOT of oranges. She seemed
perfectly happy and content, in spite of the mess, and I figured that
the oranges just hadn't agreed with her very well. So we continued
with our plans to go to town to visit and sing at the nursing home.
We had a few other stops to make first, and when we got to the
grocery store, Grace had a messy diaper. And I don't mean a normal
messy diaper, but an explosively messy diaper. I was still thinking
it must have been a side effect of all the oranges. After cleaning
her up the best we could and finishing the grocery shopping we headed
over to Shopko to buy a change of clothes for her. We made a few
other stops including a run through the drive through at McDonalds
for supper, and then pulled in at the nursing home. We went in and
started talking to people and got ready to have the kids sing, and
then poor Grace really got sick. She started having diarrhea every
five minutes or so, and there was nothing I could do but hold her as
it leaked out all over both her and me! I now knew that it wasn't
the oranges, but that she really was sick. If I had realized that
earlier, we never would have gone to the nursing home, but it was too
late now, so we had the kids sing the best we could, and I headed
home with the kids after dropping Dan off at a meeting he had in
town. Once we got home, I laid Grace on the sofa so I could get the
older kids to bed before getting her changed and cleaned up. She was
so miserable that she just laid there and waited for me.
On Wednesday we had planned to go
Christmas caroling to some older people from our church. Grace was
too sick to take anywhere, so Dan and Hannah delivered the soup and
rolls we made. The other kids had fun playing in the snow fort that
Dan had made for them earlier in the day.
Thursday morning, Daniel woke up
saying that his stomach hurt, and soon he was throwing up. In the
afternoon we made ravioli, a beloved family tradition for my dear
husband. Hannah and Sarah and even Joshua enjoyed helping us with
that, but by the evening Hannah had joined Daniel on a blanket on the
living room floor, bucket nearby. Hannah was up off and on all
night, and Dan got up with her each time, as I laid in bed with my
stomach churning.
Bright and early around 5:00 on Friday
morning we were awakened by Daniel running into our room and telling
us that “Josh needs you!” We found Joshua sitting rather calmly
in his bed, considering that he had just thrown up. We got him
cleaned up and I stayed in his bed with him till he was ready to move
to the living room. He spent the rest of the day in misery on the
living room floor, sleeping restlessly in betweent bouts of being
sick. When Grace woke up she seemed very lethargic and still sleepy,
and after I nursed her she promptly threw up. She was still having
diarrhea and I was concerned about her getting dehydrated. We made
an appointment to take her to the doctor in the afternoon, but by
lunch time she had kept food down and was acting more perky, so we
cancelled the appointment. Sarah felt pretty miserable all day on
Friday, but she never got as sick as the others. Much to everyone's
disappointment, we all stayed home from the Christmas program at
church on Friday evening, except for Dan, as he had some important
roles to play. This was quite upsetting for some of our kids, as
they had worked diligently on quite a few songs they would be singing
with the children's choir. I was disappointed too, as I was going to
sing in a choir Dan was directing for the first time ever, and I was
just looking forward to sharing the whole evening as a family.
We went to bed, hoping to get some
rest, but at 10:30, Joshua woke up throwing up again. I stayed with
him until about 12:30 and since it seemed like he was finally
sleeping peacefully, I headed back to my own bed. Around 3:30 in the
morning, we were rudely awakened by the power shutting off and
children waking up. Grace had a super runny mess in her diaper when I
picked her up, and I wondered just how I was going to change her. We
hadn't found the flashlights yet, but the electricity flicked back
on, so I started getting her cleaned up. The the power went off, and
on and off and on, and then simply stayed off. You can imagine that
changing a mess like that in the dark is a bit of a challenge, and
well, rather messy. Then of course, there was no water to clean up
with either. After getting the kids settled back down, Dan and I
tried to get a little more sleep.
On Christmas Eve morning we spent the
morning with a few more bouts of throwing up and diarrhea, no water,
no heat, and no electricity. Obviously, we were quite relieved when
the power came back on at 9:30 and we could start to clean things up
again. I spent the day running back and forth to the bathroom and
laying on the sofa. The girls and I did play some games together and
we were able to enjoy that, but I was exhausted. Joshua was no longer
throwing up, but had a fever and just laid on the floor all day
intermittently sleeping and crying. Daniel was feeling reasonably
well and he joined in some of the games we played too. We had been
planning to enjoy some cookies and hot chocolate on Christmas Eve,
but our menu changed to chicken noodle soup and crackers. A
highlight of the evening was opening gifts from my parents –
pajamas for the boys, and nightgowns that my mom had made for the
girls, with matching ones for their dolls. What special gifts! I
didn't even realize that my mom had been making them, and the girls
loved them! Even Grace unwrapped hers and said, “Pretty!” All
day long the electricity had been flickering, and we prayed that it
would stay on through the night. It did, and amazingly, we had a
resful night of sleep.
I woke up on Christmas morning feeling
pretty good, so I made some eggs and pancakes for breakfast – not
what we had planned for our special Christmas breakfast, but we were
glad just to be able to eat! We were trying to decide who should go
to church and who should stay home, when someone who had been feeling
good for a few days started in with diarrhea again. We decided it
would probably be safer if we all stayed home. It was a good
decision, because more people had the same problem later in the day.
In the middle of our little family church service of singing
Christmas carols and having Dan share a Christmas message he had
written, the power went off again. We were a little more prepared
this time as we had filled the bathtub with water for washing our
hands and cleaning things, and had filled several pitchers with
drinking water.
We spent the day with no power, but
had a good time as a family, opening gifts, playing games, and
building a lego house that Dan's Dad had gotten for the kids. By
3:00 or so the house was starting to get fairly chilly, and everyone
was starting to get weary of having no electricity. We called the
power company to see how the progress was coming on restoring power,
and they told us it should be on around 4:30. Sure enough, around
4:20, the lights came on! We popped our chicken casserole in the
oven, and it heated up in time for supper. It was wonderful to enjoy
a hot meal together.
I've done a lot of thinking this week
about lots of different things...... more on that another time!
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