Oh RSV, woe is me

We are still sick. Correction: everyone except mom is sick in this household, but I might as well be sick because I'm not getting any sleep and am practically sick with worry anyway. The kids have been sick since mid-November. Dad just got sick this week. Anika and Reni never had a break.

Dr. says that back-to-back viruses are common this time of year, and it's gotten to the point where Anika just strolls right over and helps herself to the sucker and sticker jar at the dr's office and even holds still for the stethoscope. No one is getting any sleep, what with all the coughing and sneezing and Kleenex-ing and now puffer-ing (Reni is on an inhaler to help him breathe) and both kids cringe when I come at them with the saline drops and nose sucker.

I want to take RSV and strangle it, if you could do such a thing with a virus. This thing will hang on for weeks, and possibly a month or more. I haven't done a lick of holiday shopping, and other than putting up a small Charlie Brown tree that we rescued from Lowe's, the rest of the house looks more infirmary than Christmas cheer. We did host a very noisy birthday party (at which we likely infected everyone -- sorry, guys, we didn't know about the RSV until yesterday and thought it was just another cold) and a piano recital for my student Alahna, but other than that we haven't seen other people or been out of the house in literally weeks.

Please, Santa, knock it off with this coal-in-the-stocking thing and just give me my kids' and husband's health back for Christmas.