Once upon a Christmas season we went and did a little thing called GOT SICK.  I suppose it all began with a giant life.  After all you're not living if you're not completely out of your mind busy right?  The kind of busy that keeps every moment of your day planned, maybe even too busy for a to do list.  Can you imagine too busy for a to do list??  A life so big that you plan down time.  That doubles up on extra jobs during the teenagers activities so that I'm not sitting through any time when I could be earning money.  This actually keeps me picking up extra shifts during the week when possible, and just pleading with the boy (and even myself) to be patient and good and hold on and not lose it just yet.

The little thread we have been hanging on by is proof that this is in fact no way to live at all.  Not that we needed the proof, but the weakening thread sure made things interesting.  I didn't even make it through the end of school when I was hit with the force of a fever that laid me flat in my bed for days.  It broke on a Sunday and allowed me enough courage to get through my last 2 1/2 days of school where I festively and diligently closed out all my responsibilities including assessments, scantrons, projects, a Culture Fair, a 3rd grade musical, 2 class parties, some kind of sentimental celebration ending the 1st half of our year together and their accomplishments so far.  There was even more....so much more but the details are boring and all lurking in the shadows of my overwhelmed memory.  I hate that work gets that busy.  It keeps me from the actual part of my job I like....teaching.

I wrapped up my final day with the students with a fever.  And one of my boys flipped a cup of hot chocolate on top of me.  And another student drew a picture of me in a grid (while talking about area and perimeter).  I had a thought bubble which showed me thinking of a box of tissues, and a caption bubble of me exclaiming, "I love tissues!"  And then of course he calculated the area and perimeter of me like a good follower of teacher instructions.  If I could have taught with tampons in my nostrils I totally would have.  I needed to.

After school I met my boy up the stairs to the treehouse and within approximately .5seconds we were cuddled in his bed and sleeping our mutual sicknesses and woahs....he now had a fever and had been initiated into my doom.  We slept for 5hrs.  We have actually stayed in bed each day since then.  I found about a day and half of light where I felt sure I'd overcome our Christmas obstacle.  I got a lot done in those 2 days, but as luck would have it I'm back down for the count a dizzy, nauseous wreck.  The boy is holding strong to his own congestion and feverishness.  I think we'll participate in Christmas Eve festivities?  Perhaps at our house that will look like a grocery store run and more movies in bed.  

My hope is that we just feel the great grand feeling of love.  I do feel it, but that our home continues to feel like a good place to be nursing us back to health, that we are happy in our own company, that we find pleasure in the few luxuries of Christmas gifts, and that the spirit of Christ and of Christmas and of happiness fills us more than anything else and it will feel like pure success by all accounts of measurement.

There will eventually be time for resolution making to transform our life into a less giant one, or at least to redefine what giant means to us.  Wish me luck!