My turn to be sick

Well, my body held out as long as it could, but I guess one can only hold so many children as they throw up, change so many diareah diapers, mop up so much vomit off the floor with paper towels, and wash so much contaminated laundry before catching the virus.  I have been SO sick.  I'm doing a little better today, but still incredibly dehydrated.  My milk supply has gone way down as a result and Benjamin spent a huge amount of last  night crying.  That made me so sad.  I ate a piece of toast and an egg for breakfast, my first food since Thursday.  I'm going to see if it can stay put in my stomach.  I usually wait until I feel hunger before eating again, but feel like I need to try to get nutrients in so my body can make milk for him.  Until my milk started running low last night, I think that Benjamin thought we were having a dream day.  I might have been sick as a dog, but his perspective was that I was spending the entire day laying in bed with him snuggling him and nursing him.  He was the absolute happiest little guy!  That brought me some joy in the midst of everything.  He has now caught the cold that has also been going around our house and last night started coughing.  Please pray that it doesn't go into his chest.  He's just 9.5 weeks old!  Aaron stayed home again yesterday.  He was still sick himself, but in a lot better shape than me.  He did the best he could managing everything and then came up for a 4 hour nap in the afternoon.  Last night he was finally hungry and ate a full meal.  I think that's a good sign!  I'm drinking Recharge and trying to get myself hydrated again.  I did decide that this is the perfect opportunity to get off of two addictive substances, since I just did a 40 hour fast.  I'm getting off of caffeine and sugar.  Might as well get some good out of being so sick!

Kel, you left a comment about the children eating bones.  They crack them open and suck the marrow out of the bones first.  Then they start chewing the rest of the bone and they look like they have a piece of taffy in their mouth or something.  They chew and they chew and they chew and they chew.  Finally, when they've gotten every bit out of it, they spit out something about the size of a dime.  That's all that's left of the bone and I guess it's the part you aren't supposed to eat.  To make myself feel a little better about the safety of it all, though, I like for them to wait until I've used the bones to make stock.  After the bones have cooked in the liquid for 24 or more hours (I usually cook it 24-36 hours) they are incredibly soft and are safe for anyone to eat.  At that point, they just take bites, chew them up, and swallow them.  

Thomas and Stephen are going to a Tween Christmas Party up at our church today.  I think they'll have a lot of fun at that.  I'm really happy with our church and am so glad that we found it!

Thursday night I took Sarah to the church for a special practice for the Christmas play for the African dancers.  She had a great time at that.  The Christmas play, by the way, is on missionary children around the world this time.  That's how African dancers fit into a Christmas play.  ;-)  Anyway, Benjamin was sound asleep in his car seat, so I decided to just drop her off and then I drove to Starbucks and got one of their yummy hot caramel apple ciders.  I remembered those from last year and was thrilled to see they have them again this year.  I drove back to the church parking lot and enjoyed getting to drink that while waiting on Sarah's practice to finish.  I even had the chance to call one of my very best friends on the phone.  That was such a blessing!  It's incredibly hard for me to find any time at all to talk on the phone at home.

Love, Dawn