Strep throat

Strep throat.UGH! 4 of the kids are sick. Kieanna was acting like she wasn't feeling well about a week ago. I ask her if she was sick. No, she insisted she was just sore from the adjustment on her braces. She was invited to a friends house and really wanted to go. I waited until the last minute and didn't let her go. She was upset. Well now that 4 kids are complaining with sore throats and coughing she comes clean and says yea my throat hurt last week too. I'm sure she got it from the basketball team. They share water bottles. Every time I see her drinking after someone , I cringe. I've nagged and nagged about sharing drinks, but they don't listen. I'm sure more will come down with it. Our appointment is at 11:20 today. I've already been to the psychologist office this morning. I really plan on taking the month of December off. I need to shop and just about every day someone has some kind of appointment. I do have some dentist appointments I can't cancel because rescheduling takes forever. But all the therapy, school, and psychologist appointments are getting rescheduled to the first of January. In November I had 25 appointments. Some were at the same place and I had several school conferences scheduled on the same day. But that's a lot of places to be. That's my normal, I'm not complaining, I just need a break. I'll spend that break shopping for the best deals, and trying to shop from their Christmas list. Every year I say I'm going to cut back for gifts. The kids are all spoiled and have come to expect a big Christmas. I'd like to concentrate on the real meaning of Christmas. I read one family buys 3 gifts for each child on the basis of that's what Jesus was given. I like that. All the adults drew names this year. There is just too many adults to buy everyone a gift, now that I have 6 almost 7 children over the age of 18 and some of the with spouses. Sometime I'm glad they are all getting older and I think about how nice it will be not to have to clean vomit, wipe bottoms, clean toilets, do 10 loads of laundry a day, attend conferences, cook mega meals, step over blocks, and dolls, strip wet beds, and 100 million other things moms do. Then I think about what all I'll be missing, like the wet kisses, the hugs, the snuggles after a bad dream, the art they make, that says I love you mom, the laughter and smiles from just being goofy, all the chattering when everyone talks at once when the bus runs, all the games and singing and dancing and all the times they make me laugh and I don't want an empty next any more, I want my kids to take their time growing up.