Wow

"Wow" is pretty much the only word that can begin to describe our week...at least it's the only one appropriate enough to write here! After I wrote on Monday, my husband and I treated ourselves to our favorite restaurant for lunch, and then went appliance shopping. Our refrigerator (15+ years old) has been making clanking noises, our washer (12+ yrs) hasn't worked correctly for over a year, and the dryer now requires more than one drying cycle to dry. So, almost $3500 later, new appliances were ordered. The good news is that these should obviously last for a decade, they should be more energy efficient which should save us some $$, and because our fridge is bigger we should be able to get rid of the one in our garage which will definitely save us some $$. They should all be arriving in a week or two.

Tuesday I was scheduled to work in Kindergarten, in my favorite class. I knew, however, that it was going to be an interesting day when a little girl vomited in the classroom by 9AM (school begins at 8:50). I joked with several teachers that I truly felt like a veteran sub at that point! Our afternoon and evening were also crazy because my husband had to be at the ball fields at 5:00 to pick up his equipment for his 5:30 practice. He is the head coach for HT this year, and is the assistant for JR. I had to be there to collect info from parents and hand out practice schedules, but had to make sure that I left at 5:50 so that I could get JC to karate by 6:00. I came back to the fields to get HT from practice at 6:30, and my wonderful husband sprinted over to the next practice, where I was again drafted to collect parent info. Keep in mind, the "high" temperature of the day was 48 degrees, and by this point we are well into our cloudy evening at open fields where there is nothing to break the wind. Talk about chilly! HT was pretty frigid by the time we left to get JC from karate, and everyone tumbled into bed later than I would have preferred.

Wednesday I was scheduled to be in a different Kindergarten class. It was a fairly uneventful day, and my wonderful husband had dinner under control for the evening. I spent the evening working on laundry, and it was very nice to have a couple of hours to hang out as a family.

Then along came Thursday. My, oh my...it was something! I should have realized that "something was in the air" when I got to school and was informed by the principal that they didn't have enough subs to cover all of the absent teachers so they would be splitting some classes up among the other classes at those grade levels. Okey dokey, I'm a pretty "go with the flow" kind of sub. As the kids began arriving, I noticed that there were several students I knew in the class who weren't there, and as I began taking attendance, I realized that nine of the 23 students were absent. Other teachers began coming in to report that they had absence levels in the double digits, and the Kindergarten class I had been in the day before had only five of the 21 students present. And things went downhill quickly from there. Kids began vomiting left and right throughout the school building. The office couldn't keep up with the back log of sick kids that needed to go home, and the janitor couldn't keep up with the clean up. During the thirty minute Kindergarten lunch alone, three different children vomited in the lunch room. It was unlike anything I have ever seen before. They were running out of trashcans throughout the building because the liners couldn't be changed fast enough. It was like something out of a movie...if it hadn't been so disgusting it might have been comical. By the end of the day, over 170 students (of about 550) were out with the stomach flu. The health department was called in, and it was determined that we had a norovirus which is highly contagious (that part we had already figured out!). It is most common on cruise ships, but with the hygiene habits of little kids (the primary building is k-3) it's no wonder it spread like wildfire. I had started to feel "iffy" at lunch, and by the middle of the afternoon I was achy from head to toe. Since I knew there were no more subs, I forced myself to get through the day, and then came home and crashed into bed. My fever was near 101 degrees, and I ached so badly I couldn't even sleep. About 5:30 that evening the phone call came that our entire school district would be closed for the next day. Thank goodness! I was in bed all of Thursday evening and all day Friday, but fortunately my wonderful husband was still home on spring break so he was home with the kids on Friday. We are also very grateful that (knock on wood) none of the kids seem to be showing any symptoms at this point. Most churches canceled Sunday School sessions this morning because not only is hygiene and disinfecting important, but frankly, it's equally important to keep people apart and help to stop the spread of the infection that way. I felt much better yesterday and began getting some things done around the house, but I was still not quite myself. Today I feel even better still, and we have a busy week ahead. Although this week certainly proved, you never know what adventure each week will bring!