What an April!

The month started with me being tired and ready for a break. "Worn out, ready for Spring Mom syndrome". Then less that a week later the boys got the norovirus.here Very unpleasant but it was our second or third time this Winter dealing with it and we had 2 straight weeks of it last Winter so we were "used to it"....Well how to deal with all of the middle of the night surprises on our 2 year old carpet. We missed visiting family for Easter because of the bug and did get a 10 day break from it but everything started all over again when in the middle of dinner at some friends house last Sunday, Thomas lost his dinner in front of everyone and then had to be rushed to the bathroom twice. To add to the "excitement" of the meal, their 9 month old daughter just started chocking and then not breathing properly and so my"Awesome-in-emergencies-always-has-been" husband rushed over and flipped her over and did the 'children's heimlech' on her and very quickly she was breathing again and crying! (She had some built up mucus & milk 'caught'). So we get our family home and that night and the next morning all 4 boys are sick and by the end of the day my husband was very sick as well. After that, I went straight to my knees and prayed, "Lord, my husband and sons need me, please spare me so that I can care for them". An answer to prayer...I did not get sick but I did get to do 13 loads of laundry in 5 days...I usually do 4-5 loads a week. By Thursday it seemed as if things were much better and that we could plan for Mathias' 5th birthday. I went ahead on the Friday evening and made his hockey birthday cake. On Saturday morning we picked up his friend who comes to our church with his Grandma and took 5 boys to a family plan centre called Tubes & Jujubes. We had been there for a little over an hour when I couldn't find my husband nor Mathias. Just then an employee came to find me because Mathias and my husband were in the bathroom covered in vomit and needed me to come. I got the 4 other boys together and went to find them. Mathias had gotten sick all over his father trying to make it to the bathroom in time and not vomitting in the play structures area. The employees were Super helpful. They mopped up, cleaned everything, got my husband a clean T-shirt, etc... Thankfully I had packed extra clothes for the youngest two in the diaper bag so Mathias put on his 3 year old brother's t-shirt and pants. We got out of there and took them all home. The boys weren't too upset to leave because they were hungry and so we had said we had to leave and get something to eat. We got back home and called our friends who were supposed to come over for dinner the following day and rescheduled with them. We thought we should take his friend home but his Grandma was leaving for work so he slept over (as originally planned). For the rest of the day all of the boys felt just fine and were fine for the rest of the weekend. They had an awesome time together. In the evening we gave them all baths but half way through one of the baths, our guest and Thomas got stuck in the tub when a huge wind/rain storm started and suddenly the lights went out. So before they got too scared we lit some candles for them. We read stories and brushed teeth by candlelight and by 8pm all 5 boys were in bed. The power was out for the whole evening until we crawled into bed and just as we were going to blow out a candle, the power came back on. Mathias had a great birthday day too and we had a great time at church (both services). After the second service most of the congregation was gathered in the fellowship hall to check out our congregation's new website (which you can see in 2 weeks) and just before that one of our friends proposed that we sing Happy Birthday to Mathias. He was just grinning the whole time everyone sang. When I asked him later on how he liked that he said " I've never had that many people sing Happy Birthday to me and how did they know it was my birthday today?" He won't forget that for a long time! This coming week is another very busy week just to wrap up the month. Hopefully the boys are done being sick for a while since we bought some bleach cleaner and have disinfected almost every inch of the house (we had read that was the only way to "vanquish" the norovirus) and rewashed all of the boys pillows and blankets! The daffodils are everywhere and the tulips are one a week away from bringing forth beautiful colour so here's to May!