I had big plans for this week.
If we got home from Congo on Mother's Day as we were scheduled to, I had already to planned to take a week off of school to get our kids and house back in order. I planned to spend 7 blissful days, cuddling Babies and Bigs, playing in the yard, taking hundreds of family photos. But then I threw up.
We did get back Sunday. So far so good. Grandma and Aunt Cathy stayed until Wednesday morning to ease the transition a bit. Then by noon on Wednesday Brian was starting to feel a bit under the weather.
Our wonderful bible study group threw us an impromptu baby shower that night and Brian was able to stay for about 10 minutes before he rushed home. At first we thought it was just Brian having a relapse of whatever it was he had in Congo. But by 5am the next morning it hit me. Hard.
I think I can honestly say this is the sickest I've ever been. Diarrhea, vomiting, chills, fever, joint aches, severe headache, extreme nausea, stomach cramps, dizziness, blurred vision, extreme weakness and fatigue. Have you had enough? I have, but it just won't seem to go away. I haven't been able to get too far from my couch or my bathroom since Thursday. There have been times when I couldn't pick up a baby because I didn't have the strength.
We took the girls to the doctor on Friday for their first once over and we are still waiting on stool sample results to see if the babies diapers may be the culprits. Some wonderful friends came and took the Bigs for a few hours on Friday and Sunday. Our pastor's wife delivered food. Everyone was so nice.
But boy did I feel like the biggest failure of a parent this week. My kids got yelled at more in 4 days than they probably had been up to that point. When you are at your weakest it is hard to find the energy to redirect JoJo to another activity and much easier to just scream "JoJo if you touch the fan one more time you're going to time-out and getting a spanking." "Manny, stop playing with the computer." "Haven, sit down and drink that apple juice, you asked for it and so you are going to drink it." "Grace, if you and Haven don't stop fighting you're both going to your rooms right now!"
At the end of the day Grace very sadly asked me "Mommy, why are you and Daddy mad at us?"
That broke my heart. But there is no way to explain to a room full of babies that you are simply too sick to be a good parent. It didn't make me feel any better, but it was the truth.
So I am on Day 5 of whatever this is. Brian started to recover a bit by Sunday. I am better, but not well. I'm going to wrap up this post because my eyes are starting to blur again. I swear I will be finishing my Kinshasa posts soon and plastering the blog with more picks. But believe me you don't want to see a picture of me today. And don't stop by unexpectedly. I've been wearing the same clothes for 3 days.
On the bright side, I think I've lost 10 pounds since I last got on a scale before our trip. We'll call this the Congo Parasite Diet. Fast results, but the side effects are hell!
