Warning: this post contains TMI about bodily functions and is being written by a person who has one slice of toast, a handful of Club crackers, a few bites of Ramen Noodles, and Gatoraid in the last 24 hours – coherence may not apply.

Disclaimer aside, I have to write tonight. Just like I had to force myself to take those few bites of Ramen and get in the shower (Lord in Heaven, I looked and smelled something awful, I’m sure), I have to get these stories and ramblings out of my brain, because I am hoping against hope that all of the children sleep tonight with no pukers and that all of us wake up feeling much more human in the morning.

If you’ve been following along on my FB page, you know we’ve had some illness craziness this week, starting with Lincoln getting sick at 1 a.m. Monday morning, and then Trumy getting sick at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday night. From there, it was a damn domino effect, and within eight hours of Trumy’s first urps, I got it, then Ben got it, and lastly HD got it (at 3 a.m. Wednesday morning). Side note: if you are keeping track, yes, that leaves just Raegan and so far so good but as I told a friend via text today, I fear she is a ticking time bomb and my biggest hope is that she holds out until tomorrow morning because Ben and I desperately need some sleep tonight.

Last night was a damn joke when it came to rest. The baby would not settle down nor would he be put down, which means Ben had to hold him for, I don’t know – 10 hours last night? Not even joking. Because I got sick first and the worst, he got stuck with the squirmy, fussing baby (and eventually his own illness, to boot). That is, except for at 3 a.m. when RL came down to tell us that HD had gotten sick in his top bunk bed. In that case, I took the baby while Ben dealt with the mess upstairs and then he “slept” with the bookend boys in the living room the rest of the night. I mean early morning.

It was at that point, post-3:00 shenanigans, that I took to FB one last time to update how fast we had fallen and to send out a cry for help, in the form of 7UP and Gatoraid, that is. Had I been totally honest, my call for assistance would have read like this: Never before have I so desperately wanted and needed a house elf, a night nurse, a wet nurse, and a nanny. Because really, the thought of still needing to nurse the baby and deal with the children and tend to the sickest oldest, all while my husband was just as out of commission as I was seemed damn near impossible.

But here it is, Wednesday night, and while neither of us has a lick of energy (he spent most of the day post-flu symptoms with a raging headache), we somehow got through it. And I know that most of our survival today came from the kindness of others (and Netflix. Totally Netflix for the children).

Side Rambling Note: Do any of you remember the scene in Little House on the Prairie (book, not show) where the whole family gets yellow fever or some other crazy disease and they are all laid out in bed, but then someone appears and helps Laura get water? I might be fuzzing these details, because when I think about it, that’s pretty creepy, but you get the gist, right?

Today we survived because of our water bringers. And by water I totally mean everything but water that could help reset our systems: 

More than once today, I had tears in my eyes not from the flu, but from the kindness of friends and the people we know in this town. We were blessed by four different friends dropping off supplies for us this morning and I can’t even count how many others offered and checked in throughout the day to see if we needed anything else. When you don’t live close to your family, this kind of kindness matters so very much, and we are so grateful for our village that stepped up and provided today.

We are still a low energy, eating next to nothing, smelly (not me – that’s why I showered) mess, but we are here and feeling melodramatic about the flu because although it is not the way anyone would want to spend the last 24 hours, it doesn’t all totally suck.