One (and only one) upside to the flu

Leah started it Tuesday night feeling not hungry and just a little off, and woke Wednesday with a high fever and no other symptoms that kept her in bed for the whole day. Same thing Thursday - no symptoms other than the fever. I, however, was starting to get a little achy at the shoulders.

It all went downhill from there. By supper time Thursday, Owen and Rinnah were also pretty down in the dumps, and I could tell this was no little thing for me. Friday the four of us spent the whole day doing some variation of this:

Reuben took a very long nap, but showed no other signs of being sick. Krassi was going strong all day. We're not big flu-shot people, and were beginning to wonder if that's why Krassi and Grandma were fine while many of the rest of us were down. (One sweet anecdote from Friday afternoon - Matt was still trying to get his drafting work done while we all laid around, so he shut the doors to keep Krassi in the rooms we were in and went downstairs. Krassi was okay with this to a point, and then started just whimpering - I think he was lonely! Owen called for Daddy to come up (my voice was too shot to get enough volume) and he came up for a laundry folding break - Krassi was giggling with delight the whole time Daddy was up here keeping him company! Apparently a mom and siblings sleeping on couches just doesn't cut it!)

Saturday morning Rin and Owen were a bit perkier. Leah seemed better, too, but still spent the day on the couch in her jammies. And Krassi was starting to cough...and we found out Grandma had it too (so much for flu shots!) By the afternoon, Krassi was showing more signs - the fever, more whimpering, even though the company wasn't as lonely as it had been Friday. My typical response to him whimpering is that even though he does not appreciate snuggles from mom, now that he's home and has a family he doesn't get to be sad by himself. If he's going to be unhappy, he'll do it with me! As is usual, he was not too into being close to me, but was tired enough that I was relatively soon rewarded with this:

For a little guy who still fights physical closeness for all he's worth, this was pretty precious. Here's my little nine year old boy for the very first time in his life having someone hold him when he's sick! And to make it even better, when he woke up about 45 minutes later and Reuben climbed up next to us, Krassi was fairly content to stick around for a while. Reuben on Krassi on Baby on Mom!

So although I wouldn't recommend the flu, this particular run brought some pleasant side-effects. Now I'm off to bed, yes, still wearing the same clothes I've been wearing since Friday morning ;) hoping that by tomorrow I'm better enough to cover for Matt because we're guessing from the signs this afternoon that he's next.