Sick, sick, sick

Part of the reason I'm having the kids help me write about our beach trip is because I...really have a bunch of other writing I have to do. I need to write another chapter of my thesis this week (hopefully in just the next few days) so that I can spend the first couple weeks of June editing away. But another reason I'm having the kids help me write about our beach trip is because I didn't experience it all. 

None of the adults did. 

Before we left on our trip, Zoë got sick. And then Benjamin. And then Phoebe. 

We were all fine on the drive down (thank goodness). Phoebe was a gem because she was experiencing the fever-part of her sickness and so she took a couple of epic car naps! It worked out great!

We all went to the beach when we arrived and had a great time. The next day, however...

Rachel was down for the count, so we just left her at home alone while we went out and explored downtown. We'll talk about what happened that day and she'll be like, "When did that happen?"

She was a very unhappy girl. 

But look at these cute little readers!

Just as Rachel began feeling better, Andrew took a turn for the worse. I think we just spent time at the beach, leaving him home to feel miserable. But to my memory, the bulk of his illness was over the night...

...just like mine was.

Both Rachel and Andrew managed to muscle through things without throwing up (though that comes with its own consequences). I, on the other hand, woke up in the middle of the night and sprinted to the toilet to empty my stomach a couple of times. 

Andrew took the kids to the beach the next morning to let me sleep. 

When I finally developed a fever, everyone cheered because they all knew that the fever—even with all its miserable aches—meant that the nausea had passed and I would be feeling better in literal hours. They weren't wrong.

Even with my fever, I took all the kids to the beach (by myself because by this time Grandpa was ill) while Daddy conducted a few meetings he couldn't skip out on. Then I came home and crashed again.

So we all missed out on something or other. I hardly remember Zoë's birthday. Rachel didn't get to explore downtown with us the first time (though we went a couple other times). Daddy and Grandpa missed out on entire chunks of time. Suffice it to say, I need help piecing this trip together.

We were all well on Wednesday (our fort day) and Thursday (our big beach day) and Friday (on the way home), so at least we had all of those days together!

Alexander is the last man standing. We're hoping he has managed to simply avoid getting this bug altogether (and are grateful, at least, that he didn't get the throw-ups on the way home from the beach because that would have been miserable for everyone (but especially him)). 

He's been suffering in his own way, however. His terrible ear ache turned out to be swimmer's ear (which is precisely what I expected). He and I went on a little adventure to the urgent care yesterday morning. I let him decide where we would park—close to the clinic, or across the street from the clinic so we could walk across the pedestrian bridge. Guess what he chose!

The bridge walk, of course!

Here he is bravely getting his vitals checked prior to the doctor looking at his ears.

He's got some drops that should help him feel better quickly—they sure do tickle going in though!

Here's hoping June will be a healthy, healthy month!