The Tribulation of the Choir Director

Let me walk you through my day: First, I had to cover for the Elder's Quorum President today in Ward Council. Normally that isn't a big deal, but since we have the early session this year, I had to be at the church at 7:00 a.m. That means I had to get up at 6. Again, not that big of a deal. However, since the choir was performing today in sacrament meeting, we had rehearsals before church started at 9:00 a.m.

Right after Ward Council, I called home to make sure everyone was ready to be picked up. No worries there. So I race home to find out that Benjamin had thrown up in the 15 minutes it had taken me to get home. Leslie had to conduct Primary today so couldn't stay home and I had to direct the choir so I couldn't stay home. We quickly decided that I would take the non-sick kids to sacrament and then I would come home and Leslie and I would switch.

With the kids loaded up we raced back to the church, thinking I was going to be late for the choir rehearsal. Two people showed up. Two. Normally no big deal. But we haven't practiced in the past few weeks due to several different issues. (Is Valentines day really an excuse to bail out on choir? I mean, church gets out at noon and if someone REALLY needs to be with their spouse that bad that they can't stay for the 45 minutes after church we have for choir practice, who am I to say otherwise?)

So there I was, sitting in sacrament with 4 kids wondering if anyone was going to bother getting up when it came time for the choir to sing. Lucky for me, they did. Not very many, mind you, but at least there were some. (I may be overreacting, but it seems like our ward choir has been getting smaller and smaller since I was called as the director. Meh...whatever...) We sang "Love at Home" - first verse in unison, second verse guys on melody and women on the alto line, and last verse in all 4 parts. We sounded like a typical small ward choir. I'm not judging, but I do have to keep reminding myself that none of us are professionals and with so few of us, I have to really scale back on my music selection (like strictly out of the hymn book. Luckily we have a fantastic piano player who is able to embellish the accompaniment beautifully.

A quick 15 minute run back home saw me rushing in the house and Leslie out of the house. The car engine was never shut off and I felt like high-fiving my wife while yelling "You're It!" Ben was asleep and the rest of my morning was fairly quiet. I think I was supposed to go home teaching today as well, but my companion and I never really touch base with each other and, since I wasn't really at church today, I didn't think about it until just now.

As a brief follow-up from my last post, apparently everyone in my entire world has a facebook account. Who knew? There is a lot of stuff that I just don't quite understand yet and (justified or not) there are a lot of things that the privacy freak in my head is screaming about. (i.e. I wouldn't mind playing a game or two on there, but when it asks for permission for some third party to access my personal information I tend to say, "Huh, what do you know? I didn't want to play that as much as I originally thought...") Overly paranoid? Possibly. I've accepted this about myself. I'm not sure how much I'll use it, but there it is. If someone wants to get in touch with me, they now can.

Retroperistalsis

I'm going to try to keep from getting angry during this post. Not likely to happen, but I'm going to try.

On the 4th of July, we went down to my in-laws to spend the day. Fairly soon after we got there, one of my wife's sisters told us that one of her kids was throwing up the day before and the other one threw up this morning...but they are better now so no worries.

Yeah...right....

I would have thought common courtesy demanded a phone call BEFORE we drove all that way. Come on...we have an infant! As it turns out, everyone got sick...REALLY sick. I had to miss a day of work, and I don't have that much sick/vacation time to be wasting on crap like this that could have been prevented.

Thursday night, Mary started to complain about her stomach hurting. Not long after that, she started throwing up. Leslie followed within a few hours followed by Emma. I could feel myself starting down that path, but I hoped to avoid it. I was kept busy by running between Mary's room and Emma (who was in the living room), emptying bowls and rubbing backs.

Isaiah slept on the couch and Rebekah was in her bed. I also had hopes they would miss out on it. No such luck. Around 3AM, Isaiah started hurling...followed by Rebekah only a few minutes later. I brought everyone out into the living room (except Mary, who was being the brave trooper in her room) for a grand ol' vomitous time. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Leslie making trips from our room to the bathroom, so I know she wasn't faring well either.

I won't go into gory details, but at one point I had to shout out: "Will you people stop throwing up on me?!?"

Yeah...fun times were had by all...

By the time I started my own moments of fun, everyone but Isaiah had stopped. So we had to share the bathroom at times. Ah! Nothing like Father/Son bonding...

The whole family spent most of Friday sleeping. I had a raging headache most of the day while I thought of the things that needed to have been done at work today, but now had to wait.

Yeah...thanks for sharing...

The only bright note is Benjamin: He was the only one we were initially worried about getting sick and he just slept through the whole thing and woke up smiling. Thank Heavens for small miracles.

More Sick Kids

Mary is feeling better, but now Isaiah is staying home from school. I think he has strep throat as well, but Leslie thinks it might be something less serious since he doesn't have a fever. Emma has also picked up a nasty cough, so we're keeping an eye on her as well. Rebekah goes around giving fake coughs - just to show that she is "sick" too. I guess she doesn't want to feel left out.

Leslie and I are still pretty healthy...just tired. With both of us in school and trying to raise a family, it can be exausting work. But we're hanging in there.

I've gotten away from playing online games. It has just been taking up too much time and it is way down on the priority list. That is not to say that I won't play every now and then; I'm just not going to play for hours on end anymore. Both Leslie and I want to do more stuff as a family like we used to do. It's been a good week for re-prioritizing.