FFS Friday - Did you miss me?

After an unplanned hiatus I'm back! It's been a while! How are you? What's been happening?
What better post to come back with than every ones favourite, FFS Friday (yes, I'm aware it's not Friday).

Where have I been? Well let me tell you.

The boys got sick. When I say sick, I mean really, really sick. Sicker than they've ever been in their lives. 
Whilst being sick isn't great, they timed it perfectly. 

Chai got sick at 6pm, with gastro. Why do kids always get gastro at night time? My boys have only ever gotten gastro at night, ensuring that no-one gets any sleep. Chai started vomiting at 6pm, poor little man couldn't even keep down water. Thankfully Tiger was home, so we decided that I'd sleep in Chai's bed and Eljay would sleep in our bed with Tiger. 

I was up and down with Chai vomiting. To add to the fun, at 11pm Eljay started vomiting. He woke up as the vomiting started so didn't make it to the edge of the bed. Between both boys we changed the sheets four times that night and we were up over ten times. Very little sleep occurred.

Now you may be wondering why I say their illness was well timed. Because Tiger was home. They got sick the night before he flew out. It meant that the night both boys were vomiting, I didn't have to deal with it on my own. 

Tiger left for work the next day, we were both exhausted. The boys still couldn't even keep down water, so I set them up on the couch and the poor little mites slept all day. By that evening they'd stopped vomiting and could drink water. They were burning up, one minute they'd be hot the next they'd be shivering. 

For two days they just slept. They'd wake up, I'd carry them to the toilet then they'd go back to sleep. I was madly dosing myself up on every immune tonic I could find, hoping that I didn't get sick too. By the third day their fevers were easing but they still weren't eating, they had no energy and they couldn't sit up. I was optimistically hoping that I had avoided the germs, but I hoped in vain. I was sitting on the lounge suite cuddling the boys on the afternoon of the third day when I started shaking uncontrollably with a fever. Thankfully I didn't get the vomiting part, just the fever, no energy, feeling like death part.

On the fourth day the boys were still really sick (as was I) so I took them to the Dr who told me that it was just a virus. That was good news because it'd taken all my energy to drive us to the Dr and there's no way I could have made it to the chemist if they needed antibiotics.

Day five was the first time they tried eating, they had two strawberries and a few blueberries but that was all they could handle. 

It wasn't until day seven that they could sit up. Being sick all at the same time worked out well because we just lay on the couch unable to do anything. Thankfully none of us had an appetite, there's no way I could have prepared a meal. I did do an online shop, but it's so difficult to find healthy pre-prepared meals that kids will eat!

All up we were sick for two weeks. The whole time Tiger was away we were sick. Whilst that wasn't great, it meant that when he got home we were well rested, usually he gets home and I'm an exhausted mess.

The day after Tiger got home we went on holidays. I was still recovering (and still am now, I can't get rid of the cough, it just won't go away) but again, that worked quite well because it meant we were forced to relax.

It's been a while since we've had a family holiday so I'd forgotten how difficult it is for Chai to cope with a change of routine. For the first four days his anxiety was through the roof. He was so difficult to deal with. The poor little mite was trying his best (and doing a bloody brilliant job) of controlling himself, but it was a huge struggle for him. I hate seeing my baby in that state. Tiger does not cope with Chai when he's like that, so it's left for me to deal with. 

I'm amazed how how emotionally mature Chai is and how strong his will. For a seven year old he coped really well, he knew his anxiety/spd was causing issues and he tried so very hard. At one stage he was shaking with the effort of controlling himself so that he didn't explode, but he did it! I was so very proud of him this whole trip.  

Chai's struggles meant that the first four days were tough, really tough. I was exhausted from dealing with Chai and just wanted to go home. Thankfully after day four things got better and he coped a lot better. He was still super anxious but he wasn't having meltdowns all day.

We managed to relax and enjoy our holiday, the boys did a lot of swimming, we went to a wildlife park, did a little bit of shopping and a whole lot of relaxing. 

I went to Sephora for my first time and was sorely disappointed. The Pacific Fair store was out of stock of so many things that I wanted. We'd budgeted for me to spend around $500, I spent $97. Everything that I wanted to look at was out of stock, a lot of the displays were more than half empty. They had a big, unfriendly security guard stalking around the store. I don't know why they bothered because there was no stock to steal. I thought the online store was bad for having so many products out of stock, but they have way more stock available than Pacific Fair did!

Overall the holiday was a success. We got home yesterday and now I'm busily doing all the fun post holiday washing. I think I have about 300 loads to do.

One lovely thing that has occurred since my illness is that I now wee myself every time I cough. Considering I'm still doing my best to cough up a lung, that's a lot of wee. Fun times. Luckily I'm starting at the gym in a few weeks, so I'll be focusing on my pelvic floor exercises!

That's the end of my whinge/overshare for today, back to regular posts as soon as I escape from Mt Washmore.