The week that made Mommy want to run away and join the circus.

December is done and I'm finally starting to feel like I'm back in the land of the living. It was a mad rush to figure out how to pay for Christmas, find gifts, and get everything organized. It made me rather Bah-humbuggy. I expressed my distaste for all things tinlsey and festive at our monthly PTA meeting and I thought the gasps of horror were going to blow me through the library wall and straight into the Instructional Resource room. "How could you say that?" said one particularly disgusted parent. "You have little children at home!" Apparently the fact that someone of the small persuasion would be ripping open gifts at the butt crack of dawn in my living room should make it impossible for me to feel any holiday stress. Screw her. She's a freak who drinks gas station coffee and eats crab rangoons during the meetings.

But Christmas came and was good. The kids were spoiled and had great fun. The food was great and we all ate way to much. Well, there was that unfortunate incident of my husband stepping on a three inch embroidery needle. It went straight into his foot - what the hell are the odds of that? It stopped just before the eye and I got to pull it out for him. That was pretty gnarly! I was really impressed by how much it bled after it was out.

Then December 26th happened.

Jasmine woke up early and left the house by 7:30am to go redeem her Christmas gift cards. She was back by 9:30am and said she didn't feel well. It all fell apart shortly after she came home. She puked more than any human should. I banned everyone from using the upstairs bathroom and sent the little ones to my mom's house. It was close to 11pm before she was able to settle down and sleep. But the damage was done. Pretty soon Lila starting in, then my mom was ill, followed closely by Violet. I'll spare you the gory details and just say that I fully expected Dustin Hoffman to knock on our door dressed in HASMAT gear and ask if we'd seen a monkey roaming around. Somewhere in there our rabbit died too. I hate to be insensitive, but I was really too tired to care. My dad bagged him up and left him by our car. He then went to a "better place", otherwise know as my sister in law's dumpster. Don't judge. What the hell would you do with a dead rabbit in below freezing weather?

It was pretty bad. I had some barfing everyday during Christmas break. On the upside, I'm now pretty good at pulling the sheets off the bed in a nice ball so that when I get to the washer the icky part can unfold right into the machine. Hey, we all need skills baby.

So New Years Eve came around and everyone was much better. We had a few friends over and we're in bed by 2am. By 4:30am I was up and ready to die. So was my husband. It seems the nasty Norwalk virus survived my ferocious bleach scrubbing and slammed us too. We were in rough shape, and the worst part was that New Years Day is Lila's birthday. I had promised her that she could have chocolate chip pancakes for her birthday breakfast and I hated to disappoint her. The smell of the hot butter and the batter almost made me cry, but I managed to cook two before giving up. I spent the rest of the day moaning on the couch and Darryl spent it in bed.

So that was my week of hell. But it's done, gone, and soon to be forgotten. I officially welcome 2008! Just be gentle to me, I'm low on detergent and bleach.