Variety of illness does not bring a happy new year

I

llnesses suffered at our house in order of appearance during Christmas holidays: croup, horrible, horrible flu (HHF), croup, HHR times three, croup, boredom, pink eye, common cold.

At this point, I will take an intravenous shot of vitamins and cold medicine from anyone who will give it to me. Besides some (very) vivid flashbacks of the HHF, what I remember most about the holiday season was the boredom. After the HHF ravaged our household, a general weakness and fatigue hit and with that came boredom.

When you are recovering from all sorts of illnesses and after you have watched the maximum amount of The Vampire Diaries on Netflix (turns out the maximum is about six and a half seasons), you are left with no energy to do anything but an incredible urge to “do something.”

At 30 below zero, there are not a lot of “somethings” to be had and instead, you do a variation of the following: wake up grumpy, check the temperature, swear, have coffee, eat breakfast, check temperature again hoping it got warmer, maybe swear again because cursing quietly under your breath is fun, open the fridge for a little while and look inside for something that will make you feel better, close the fridge and wander away pouty, have more coffee, sit down on couch, kids ask to watch cartoons, get off couch because you have no interest in watching Bubble Guppies and instead wonder if it is too early to start watching Vampire Diaries again, have more coffee, open fridge, call someone to see if they want to come over (they don’t because your house has been quarantined and no one wants what you have), play crib with husband, check fridge again to see if there has been any change in contents, check temperature outside to see if there has been any change, win the first game of crib and gloat only to get skunked in the next three games to your embarrassment, put on a sweater because you are cold, take off the sweater because you are dying of heat exhaustion, feed the kids one of fourteen snacks that they will request throughout the day, do exactly one load of laundry and don’t fold it hoping that someone else will do it (they don’t).

Rinse and repeat.

Starting the fresh new year off with a variety of holdover illnesses from 2017 is not how I envisioned embracing 2018.

The volume and assortment of sicknesses had at our house in the final month of the year leads me to think there is a quota system somewhere.

There must be a mystical tally somewhere in the universe with a bunch of space creatures watching Earth saying, “Well this house seems to have gotten away lightly this year.

They need about fifteen more illnesses to keep up with the Joneses.” Thus, we got all the sick, all at once. I have high hopes for this year. I am optimistic that my family and I will eventually get better and we will have the opportunity to actually play in the snow.

It can’t stay cold forever, can it?