Day 4 of . . . H1N1 . . . ???

Well, I assume that's what it is, anyway.

The kids are all pretty much over it. There is some lingering coughing going on, especially Finn, who was the last of them to get it.

Me? I still feel pretty much like shit. Monday and Tuesday I was feverish and oh so achey, and I could hardly drag myself from bed. Yesterday I was out of bed all day and although I still felt like crap, I was no longer feverish and felt a smidge better than I had the day before. Today I think I feel a little worse than I did yesterday, probably because Finn decided that last night would be a good night to get me out of bed to sit with him a few times (oh, and I twisted my left ankle not once, but twice, last night after standing up and not realizing my foot had fallen asleep along with the rest of me in the rocking chair as I sat with Finn - so now on top of everything else, I have a sore/tweaked ankle . . . wahhh). Oh, and Michael's been home taking care of everything all week, thank goodness, but today he had to go in to the office, so here I am, on my own, feeling a wee bit sorry for myself.

I'll survive. It stinks to be sick, but there are worse things.

Oh, and Michael seems to have caught the bug too. His oncologist got him on some Tamiflu as soon as he started having symptoms, and wow, it seems to have made a world of difference, because he has yet to go into full-blown flu mode. I also got some Tamiflu, but I'm thinking I started it a little too late for it to make a big difference. I'm glad Michael's hanging in there. His oncologist - have I mentioned how much I love that guy? - does not seem to be overly concerned about M being exposed to this. I love me a doctor who's not an alarmist. He said, "Yeah, I believe H1N1 exists, but I also believe there's a lot of hype about it. It's the flu."

So, thankfully, we can now say that our whole family is immune to this.

~~~

I wanted to write about Michael's 40-minute altercation with the girls yesterday morning, trying to get them to eat fruit with their breakfast. See, my kids all seem to have decided that produce is poisonous. And in all honesty, I've pretty much given up. Every veggie or fruit I serve to them they refuse to touch and it ends up in the trash. So why bother? (I know this doesn't score me points on the Good Mother list, but whaddyagonnado?)

But yesterday, with my being sick and all, Michael was handling breakfast. I mostly sat back and watched. I warned him that he might be able to put fruit on their plates, but he couldn't actually force them to eat it. He was determined, however. The girls all flat-out refused to accept the fruit (which happened to be banana). "No," they all said. "I won't eat it," they all said. Michael tried coaxing them patiently. Nope. He offered them a different fruit - apple perhaps? Nope. Annabelle, ever the wily one, slyly suggested to Daddy that he pack fruit in her school lunch. I informed him that she was on to him and she wouldn't eat any fruit at school either. Threats ensued. "If you don't eat the fruit," Michael told them, "then you don't get breakfast." He added, "And make sure when you get to school you tell you teacher that I offered you breakfast, but you refused it." (This because we used to deal with this same exact issue with Kevin when he was little, and he would actually go to school and tell his teacher that we wouldn't feed him breakfast!) Daisy got snotty, as she is wont to do lately. Michael unceremoniously dumped her out of her chair onto the floor, where she proceeded to howl in anger and righteous indignation. Secretly, I felt a sick sense of satisfaction seeing him be the mean parent for a change.

Anyway, this went on for a full 40 minutes. And truth be told, I don't even know at this point who won. Did they finally eat their fruit? I have no idea. It was fun to watch that whole scene as an observer, though. And the apples that were packed in their lunch boxes? They came back home uneaten in the afternoon.

::sigh::