Sick Kids and Interrupted Plans

This has definitely been a winter to remember.  We’ve had more snow and more bitterly cold days than any winter that I’ve experienced in my adult life.  The kids have had more snow days (and ice days and dangerously cold days) than I can count.  Travel plans have been adjusted.  My work schedule has been pushed aside again and again.  Joe has missed so many hours of his day job because he is home snow blowing the driveway or the roads are impassible or one of us is too sick to work.  This past month has been particularly difficult because our entire family got walloped by a nasty stomach virus that was followed by a miserable cold.  As if that wasn’t enough, we were healthy for about a week when, one by one, we started to show symptoms of another bad cold, this time in our chest and sinuses.  So we are currently quarantined in our house together and taking turns lying on the sofa or napping in our beds and sipping honey and lemon tea or hot broth.  And I am tired.  Tired of cleaning germs from the many surfaces in the house.  Tired of adjusting our schedules, canceling plans, and not knowing what the next day may hold.  Tired of trying to maintain our homesteading lifestyle when that means that someone has to bundle up and go outside and take care of the animals no matter how cold it is or how sick you feel.  Tired of not sleeping at night because one of the three kids does not feel well and it’s my turn to get up and soothe them.  Just plain tired.

As I sit here writing this post, my parents and sister are driving across the state to move all of my parents’ belongings from the house where I grew up to a new, smaller house that is less than ten minutes away from our house.  I am incredibly saddened by the fact that we couldn’t welcome them into our home tonight for an emotional and long-awaited celebration.  This move has been years in the making and it’s still a little bit surreal that they will be so close to us and there won’t be a four hour drive involved with a visit to Grandmama and Pappy’s house.  But we won’t be able to welcome them tonight or tomorrow and maybe not even the next day.  We won’t be able to help with the initial phase of unpacking or bring them some home-cooked meals for those first few nights in their new home.  It just feels so unfair.

It’s been hard to stay positive but I am doing my best to see the good in everything and everyone around us.  Things like the sun shining outside today.  And that 60°F day in the forecast for next week.  And the extra snuggle time that I have been spending with my children as we lay on the sofa reading a book or watching yet another movie to take our minds off of being sick.  And the jar of homemade soup that our neighbors dropped off this morning when they heard that we weren’t feeling well.  And the homemade dinner that my in-laws promised to bring to us tomorrow night so that we don’t have to cook.  And the fact that, regardless of the moving day not going as I had planned, my parents will now be living just a short drive away from us.  There are so many things to be thankful for in this beautiful life.  If I can just take a moment each day to notice them.