Saturday, December 16, 2006

'Tis The Season

The cold season, that is.

Yes, I know, it's also the Christmas season, and even in this Asianese city there are Christmas decorations everywhere. The major hotels have lovely, classy decorations; the nicer restaurants have nice-looking decorations too, and even the local small eating joints have tacky looking Santas and Christmas tree vinyl clings in their windows. We've got the whole range here in our city.

But for our family this week, it was the cold season. I think Clara Anne was the first one to fall victim to a runny nose about a week ago, and then John got a cold which has now descended into his chest, and Chloe's nose has been running too. Bleh! It's no fun to be sick, especially around Christmastime. Last year at Christmas we had so many parties here in our home, and were so busy, that it was after Christmas when we "crashed" and John got the flu, sicker than I've ever seen him. It was pretty bad; at one point during that week he was so weak and had such a sore throat and high fever that I had to help him sip through a straw from a cup of water, he had no strength to lift it himself. Needless to say, we're hoping to avoid that this year!

Thankfully I am feeling allright--someone's got to keep the house running! But I have a confession to make. When I was a teenager, I did lots of babysitting, and I always secretly despised snotty-nosed kids. You know the ones. They are happily running around playing, as their noses are running two rivers of snot down to their lips. I always thought it was so yucky and I did not enjoy wiping their noses. But this week, I realized that now I have two snotty-nosed kids! There was one memorable incident when Clara Anne had been playing by herself for awhile and her fine, flyaway hair had gotten stuck in the "stuff" under her nose. When I noticed her hair in her face I tried to smooth it back and tuck it behind her ear, and it was dried there. Eeewww! Snotty-nosed girl strikes again!

We have been keeping the Kleenex manufacturers in business this week. We'll hope that next week is better!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey Rachel, I too have despised snotty nosed kids! And although my Kristiana hasn't yet had a major snot nose, the few times she has had minor ones, I've felt so bad for her. Its rough to see a child not feeling well...thankfully we haven't been hit hard yet. That's so freaky that John was so sick that you had to help him with his straw! Yikes! I really enjoy reading your blog. I'm just catching up tonight while Kristi is sleeping & Erik is out for a walk. Love ya, Melody