Cough, cough ... cough, cough ...

This virus turned out to be a rough one.  The order of its victims so far has been Kate, followed close behind by Mom, then Anna and Ethan, pretty much at the same time.  We are all still hoping that Matt was able to steer clear of the nastiness, or maybe he already built up some immunity.

Kate bounced back pretty quickly last week, but I kept going downhill throughout the week, feeling more and more tired at the end of each day, and waking up feeling less and less rested.  Thursday morning I gave up and Matt was in charge of the morning routine with the kids before returning home to work for the day.  (Translate ... Mom got a few hours of rest in the a.m., but still was responsible for the pick-up, drop-off, pick-up, drop-off, pick-up, drop-off circus of Thursday afternoons.)

By Friday, Ethan was showing signs and symptoms of having been cooped up too much during the week due to his mother's illness.  We decided to meet a friend at a trampoline park in the morning with the hope that Ethan would get some of that pent-up energy out before lunch, allowing me to rest in the afternoon.  That sort-of worked.

Saturday morning Anna woke up with the beginnings of her illness and Ethan was starting to have a nasty cough, too.  But Kate was a bundle of energy and I was tired of being cooped up in the house.  Matt ended up staying home with Anna and Ethan, while Kate and I spent the middle part of the day at the International Festival at the Overture Center in downtown Madison.

The two of us had a wonderful time, watching a group of "steppers", an African drumming and dance troupe, some traditional Lithuanian dancers, and a group of Spanish flamenco dancers, in addition to seeing and smelling plenty of foods and items from around the world.  As we were getting ready to leave, Kate let me know that if I ever wanted to go to an event like this again, she'd love to come with me, especially if I wasn't sick and we could stay as long as she wanted to ;)

Anna's cough and illness continued to drag her down, keeping her home from church on Sunday.  She rested, listened to books, and we played a few games.  She hates colds with coughs, but thoroughly understands the need to rest ... most of the time.

Sunday afternoon Kate was scheduled to go tubing with her 4H group.  We picked up one of her friends and joined the rest of the kids at the skiing/sledding hill for a couple of hours.  Had I been feeling better, I might have joined them on the tubes a little bit, but my own cough kept me inside most of the time.  The kids all had a blast, though :)

We had hoped that by giving Anna the time and space to rest, her body would be able to kick the virus quickly, but she had a fever on and off on Monday (when the girls didn't have school anyway).  More resting, more fluids, and even a nap helped perk her up.  Although she is home from school today (we still abide by the 24 hour fever-free rule here), she's feeling much, much better.  Hooray!

But, now Ethan has a fever.  His cough has also been deep and yucky, but his energy still seemed about normal prior to today.  However, he seemed more tired than usual after preK today so I checked his temperature after lunch today.  Sure enough, fever.  He's sleeping right now (really?!) so maybe his virus will follow the same course as Anna's and he will feel back to normal tomorrow.

At least these last two days of feverish kids have coincided with some beautiful spring-like weather.  After some cajoling on my part to get them outside initially, Kate and Ethan ended up spending almost 3 hours outside after lunch without hats or gloves!

I think the last 45 minutes outside was spent swinging and yelling ... these two both needed some weather like this!

Today, Anna has played merrily on the patio for close to 2 hours as well!

I've kept the patio door open these afternoons to try to clear out some of the winter germs that have been lingering in our home.  This is traditionally the time of year when we get hit with the worst of our winter illnesses.  Although I have hopes that this last round will be our final one, I have enough experience to realize that these dreams will probably not come true.  Oh, well.

On a completely unrelated note, we finished up the last of our frozen vegetables last week.  Sigh.  We still have plenty of canned goods, sweet potatoes, and pumpkins, but we will miss all of those green veggies we preserved last summer.  But ... today I ordered some more seeds for this year.  Bring on spring!