VanderMeander

I got an email just now from Lisa updating me on her first few days at home with her new baby boy Ishaq. (Hooray, Lisa! I’m so happy for you guys!) And at the end of the email she asked how things were going here and what was with all the “poo” talk I’ve been going on about on Twitter and Facebook. Okay. Here’s what it is:

Exactly two weeks ago Luke came down with some stomach bug. It was mostly just diarrhea, but he threw up once and was really weak and tired (thankfully, no fever). When he got it, I got it. Just a stomach bug. I still mostly had energy except for the odd day where I was exhausted. Luke got better. Then Olivia had a day or two of the runs. I still had days of the stomach bug hitting, but had more energy. Then maybe five days ago, it was Marc’s turn. He had it pretty bad for a few days and, right when he seemed to be doing better, yesterday he started feeling flu-y again — sore throat, exhausted, a bit of the chills. And for me, it started Sunday afternoon where the sore throat hit. I had gone to bed at 8:30pm on Saturday night because I was just so tired. But apparently that wasn’t enough rest for my body. Monday morning I ran to the toilet eight times between 6:30am and 7:30am. It was nasty. Every time I moved my stomach would roll.Because Marc started feeling worse last night, neither of us got to the dishes in the sink (and all over the counters — so much for the clean house!) that had been piling up all weekend.

And then we got a knock on our door just after supper last night. A pipe had burst somewhere 8 feet under and they’d have to get a contractor in sometime the next day to fix it. They turned the water on for 15 minutes so everyone affected could fill bathtubs and anything else to store water. Do you know how much water it takes to flush a toilet?!? Needless to say, we’ve seen the water level decrease far too quickly in our bathtub, and I think we’ve only flushed the toilet two or three times since last night. And this is in the middle of Marc and I still having this stomach bug, and Olivia too.

So, at this point, I haven’t showered since Sunday morning. I spent all of yesterday laying on the couch in my pyjamas cutting out flannelgraph stuff, so at least I was doing something. And now the flannelgraph has been dumped out of the box. There are dishes all over the kitchen. Our bathtub is one-third full of water with a bunch of rust particles at the bottom. And I really feel like our whole house just smells stale and like poo. And it probably doesn’t. But everything feels yucky. And then when I stepped out the door to take the kids to their birthday party this morning, the manure on the farmers’ fields filled the air with poo.

Poopity. Poopity. Poo. I just hope it’s not long before the water gets turned back on. I am very soon in need of a shower. Thank the Lord for hand sanitizer. That’s all I’ve got to say. And now I have to step away from the computer desk, because something really stinks over here. And I just really hope it’s not me.

Filed under: Family, Life by Dixie Vandersluys