When you get that many kids together for any amount of time, you're bound to spread a sickness or two around. Many of our Christmas memories with cousins are remembered as "the year we had strep," "the impetigo/hand-foot-mouth disease year," or the "really bad year when we all had the stomach flu." And most notable are the years when, amazingly, nobody gets sick.
I've given up trying to prevent it. It is not worth the work because it doesn't seem to make a difference how many surfaces we clean with lysol wipes or how many times we use hand sanitizer or how many loads of laundry we do. The germs just get spread. So now I kind of expect it, but it is still a pain.
Simon threw up while we were at Amy's doing a Despicable Me marathon. I'm so incredibly grateful that she was so easy going about it and so helpful with cleaning it up and helping him be comfortable. What a blessing to not be stressed about what she is thinking.
That night I was playing with Sullivan when he suddenly said, "gross," and threw up on me. So I spent the night going from one child to another, putting more gross loads of laundry in. The rug that Sullivan threw up on broke my mom's upstairs washer. More inconvenience.
Days later as I was outside walking downstairs to switch out more laundry, I began to feel a dreadful fear that my whole "vacation" was being wasted on sickness.
But I caught myself in the thought and cast it aside.
What else did I wish to be doing?
I remembered who spent His days caring for the sick.
And it became a sweet privilege to be about His business.
What a sweet perspective. :)
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