In the military, there is no set work schedule. No 9 to 5 with weekends off. My husband especially works weird hours since he works in aviation (flight paramedic). So sometimes he will work long days, nights, weekends, etc. It is not unusual for him to work for a few weeks straight. During training it is even more than a few weeks straight. However, every once in a while he will get a reset day. That is what his day off to recover is called.
The last few months of holidays and sports and life have been busy in our house. Really busy. So when it was just days before Christmas and my youngest daughter (Reese) started getting sick, I was actually not too sad. Yes, I get some time off to just stay home for a few days were my thoughts. Well, that was great for a few days, but then my older daughter (Celia) and I both got sick.
The past ten years of my Celia's life, she has slept until her usual waking time of seven thirty Christmas morning. This year broke the streak. Christmas hit our household earlier than it ever had and not with the sounds of joyful kids seeing presents. In my NyQuil induced stupor I vaguely remember Celia coming into our room talking about throwing up at two am. My husband told her to take a shower and got the mess cleaned up while I was still in my stupor. Two hours later when Reese got up and Celia had still not fallen back asleep, we decided to just get this Christmas present thing over with. Yay we opened our presents and everyone was happy. Coughing and tired, but happy. Since we got up so early I decided to make homemade cinnamon rolls from scratch. Once a year I can do that and we needed more sugar anyways.
Reese was so entertained by her toys (especially a cash register from her grandparents) that the rest of us were able to nap and we were very glad about that. However, after we had all woken up and Reese was grouchy and still bouncing off the walls we had to punish Reese into napping. Boy was it worth it though. She was just as tired as the rest of us, but she does not like to nap.
Later that night I took Celia into the ER and found out she had an ear infection. So they started her on some medicine and I went home with my diagnosis of a virus or cold and downed more NyQuil. We started to see some improvement in our health days later, but not much. In fact our Christmas break included three trips to the ER and another trip to two different doctors next door to each other. Lots of medicine and lots of sickness. With Celia also getting Strep throat and me a sinus infection. By the end we felt like ER regulars and knew to pack snacks and plenty of entertainment....OK so maybe all it took was Celia's kindle. The girls watched Hotel Transylvania about ten times this Christmas break because it was one of the few downloaded on to the Kindle. They love the fart scene what can I say.
The hardest part was knowing that my girls were not having a fun vacation. They were not able to play with friends and we hardly left the house. I had fun playing games with them at home, but it was a lot of work to keep things clean when half us did not feel like doing anything. Thankfully my husband actually had some of those days off and he makes a much better housewife than I do. Our house was probably cleaner than usual, but I think he needed a break from his break. Last week as I was complaining to the Lord a little in prayer about how long we had been sick, I got the impression that these were our reset days. I had asked for some time to read and rest and I got it. "You asked for it, you got it." We had days to focus on rest, relax, and recover from a busy life. These days were a blessing and a reminder of how good it is to be busy and healthy. I think I am ready for our reset days to be over. We had a nice break from friends, sports, responsibilities, working out, etc. This week school starts, sports start, and work outs begin again. Now we know, we wouldn't have it any other way. We hope that you had an enjoyable holidays, but if yours ended up being your own reset days we hope that you are now able to be grateful for even more. The Lord teaches us lessons in all things, we just need to listen.
