fall

How to Stay Sane During Cold and Flu Season

/ Kayleen Terrell / Leave a comment

Fall is my favorite time of year. I love how the landscape changes its palette of colors, the crispness that settles in the air, the new routines, and excitement of the unknown as school and other activities begin. There is one thing about fall however, that I one hundred percent despise, and that is the start of the cold and flu season

I hate during fall and winter when my kids are sick. When they have constant runny noses or a cough that lasts for what seems like weeks, I loathe that whatever they end up catching, I will likely end up catching. The sickness season always seems to hit my family pretty hard initially. Last year, we all caught a cold that came with a side of viral eye infections. My son and husband couldn’t even make Thanksgiving dinner at my parents house. 

This year, it was a stomach bug. Within a span of about two weeks, this nasty stomach virus circulated through everyone in our family mid-October. This was shortly followed by a cold virus. A shot of stomach virus quickly followed by a chaser of cold virus was not an easy combination to take. 

My husband and I joke that my daughter is always patient zero. She comes home from school with all sorts of germs and invisible nastiness. No matter how hard I try, I can never keep all the sickness away. 

Over the past couple years as we have survived cold and flu season, I have learned some useful tips that have helped keep me sane. 

Don’t Blame Yourself 

This is a big one. Every year when our first round of sickness hits, I ask myself, “Is it me? Am I doing something wrong?  Why my kids always get sick? Other friends’ kids seem healthy and mine are already battling the invisible germs and viruses.”

My mind is a continual feed of questions and self-doubt. “My kids probably don’t eat enough spinach or kale. That has to be it. Maybe we were overly aware of germs and hand washing/sanitizing when they were babies and now we are paying the price? Maybe I didn’t teach my daughter how to wash her hands well enough? Maybe our house is too clean? Maybe it isn’t clean enough-we must have too much dust or maybe…we have mold!?!”

Each year, I go through this cycle of guilt, that it is somehow my fault and I always come to the realization that it is not. Sickness just happens. It always will happen. Are there certain things we can do to help with the amount of sickness? Sure. But do I need to bang my head against the wall, wondering if it was because we didn’t wash our hands well enough after coming home from the park? No. All we can do as parents is try our best to teach good cleanliness habits to our kids and even with all that in place, sickness can still happen. 

So to sum up: don’t blame yourself, sickness just happens. 

Do Have a Basket of Remedies 

This leads me to my next tip. When sickness happens in your household and despite your best efforts, it will, I find it is best to be prepared with the necessary medicines and comforts. 

I have a hard time with daily living when I have a cluttered kitchen counter but when someone or multiple people are sick in the household, it seems not only necessary but convenient to have medicines, teas, rubs, and oils out where we can access them easily. 

Two years ago, I just grabbed an extra basket and started sticking in the essentials as I used them. I ended up with this collection of remedies in a basket on my kitchen counter. Our basket includes items such as Tylenol, chest rub, eucalyptus essential oil, honey lollipops and so on.  I also have some things stocked in there for my husband and I as well such as Nuun tablets and Emergen-C packets. 

Jordan and I tend to feel bad and buy kids gifts each time they are sick (especially if they are really sick). This can add up though, so I’d like to try creating a basket or container tucked away with small toys or activities for when they are sick.  This is something I am still working on. 

I am not a big fan of slime, but it provided some good hours of entertainment for the kids while we were all under the weather in October. Since, they don’t usually play with it, this was something special that kept them occupied for a long time. Then I tossed it, never to be seen again. Nonetheless, I was glad I had something new to bring out that kept them occupied. 

Don’t Go Overkill With Cleaning and Sanitizing

Guilty. With the stomach virus earlier this season, I bleached, wiped, washed my hands until they were cracked and bleeding, washed bedding with hot water, and we all still got sick, save for Grandma and Grandpa who just stayed away (Thank God)!

This circulates back to my first idea that sickness just happens and despite your best efforts, there is sometimes nothing you can do to prevent it from happening. 

I guess what I really want to say is you can clean and try your best to sanitize but don’t be a crazy maniac about it. It might be better to just take the restful moments you have (if any) and sit. Cuddle up with the kids and watch the movie. Make that cup of tea. Take the nap. I am the worst at this, but I am trying. 

Take Advantage of When Your Family is Healthy

I’m a pretty hardcore introvert. I have to be cooped up in my house a long time before it really starts to wear on me. Even as a homebody at heart, dealing with sickness, yours or your spouse or kids, day in and day out for a while, can be hard. I am one of those people where I am fine, until I am totally not fine and I burst. 

So I have to say to myself and now I am saying to you, introvert or not, take advantage of when you are healthy. Say yes to those playdates, those get togethers, or when your husband suggests the whole family go out and do something. Take your daughter to her friend’s pool party and go down the waterslide with her as many times as she wants. Say yes to getting together with other couples, even though you might have the strong urge to take a raincheck and stay in. Say yes because there might be a day in about three weeks when you are neck deep in vomit and you just want the hell out. 

Stay healthy friends. It is likely though that you won’t, so I hope these little tips are encouraging. 

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Here are a few of my favorite countertop basket items:

–Zarbees baby soothing chest rub: made with eucalyptus, lavender and beeswax

–Nuun hydration tablets: these were a lifesaver for me after the stomach virus. Very little sugar unlike other electrolyte drinks. 

–Oilogic Stuffy Nose and Cough Vapor Bath: bubbles that help kids breath (yes, please). If you can’t find the bath bubbles, I like the epsom salt too. 

-PRI Manuka Honey Lemon Honey Lollipops: I don’t know if these really help a sore throat, but my kids love them and they are special treat when they are sick. 

The Fury of Fall

/ Kayleen Terrell / Leave a comment

Early fall can be a confusing time in the Pacific Northwest. Hail has been known to pelt down on my car as I drive home from work, while the sun simultaneously shines in my face and glistens the wet road.

I’m cozily wrapped in a sweater to fight the morning chill, yet by afternoon, I’m peeling off layers as the sticky sweat of summer seems to linger on my skin. 

This time of year is a majestic paradox of stormy and beautiful, cold and hot, fast and slow,  all mixed together. Patches of green, yellow, brown and hints of red, paint the landscape. The lawn’s grass still grows wildly as the trees begin to lazily litter their leaves upon it. 

My family and I begin to find our rhythm again that we lost in the blur of summer. Back to school routines, shorter days, and the thought of a warm home-cooked meal, offer a welcomed permission to curl up in a blanket and crack open a good book. 

Yet, the beginning of fall is hectic. Mornings are a repeated reel of breakfast, getting dressed, brushing teeth, packing lunch, and heading out the door to catch the bus. 

It’s a constant ebb and flow of keeping up our urgent, fast-paced schedules, while also finding the time to drink that cup of tea and bake fresh banana bread. I often figure out dinner on my way home from work and it’s all I can do to just get the kids in the bath before piling into bed, Yet, there are those afternoons where the clouds roll in beckoning us indoors for games and hot drinks. There are those mornings where a candle is lit,  the sweatshirt stays on, and the second cup of coffee is sipped. 

I find myself lost in the variety that early fall offers us. Stressed one minute, totally calm and relaxed the next, I’m as unsettled and undecided as the weather. One thing, however, remains constant among the changing seasons and that is God’s longing for us. 

I heard a song recently called, “Reckless Love,” by I AM THEY. The lyrics of this song struck a chord with me so vividly, I’ve had it playing on repeat in the car for days. As the chorus echoes in my car speakers, I’m relieved at the reminder the song has provided me: 

Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God

Oh, it chases me down, fights ’til I’m found, leaves the ninety-nine

And I couldn’t earn it, I don’t deserve it, still, You give Yourself away

Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God, yeah

The message in these lyrics that resonated with me is that the Father’s love is never-ending. It is not something we can earn or deserve and there is something extraordinarily peaceful about that thought. No matter the mistakes we make, how selfish we are, or how tired we might feel, God’s love chases us down and is given freely, without a second thought. 

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My husband and I sometimes get into this routine at night where we watch a show together but we are sitting in different places in the room. He’ll take the comfortable recliner and I always gravitate towards the end of the couch where I can put my drink, snacks, or whatever I am working on, on the table next to me. The other night, I looked up at him and realized that I really wanted him on the couch with me. I didn’t need him to come rub my feet or share my snack, I just wanted him near. 

 “Come sit by me.” I told him. 

“Why, what do you want?” He replied jokingly. He came over and sat by me bringing his Costco-sized extra soft blanket with him. Nothing else had changed much except we were now in closer proximity, but It felt good. It felt better just to be by him. 

Sometimes I feel that’s all the Father wants is for me to just come and be near Him. “Come sit next to me,” He beckons. “I want to share this space with you. I want to be near to you. I don’t need anything other than your presence here with Me.”

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With the start of the school year, I cherish the times my kids and I share before bed (the sweet times, not the I’m throwing a tantrum because kindergarten is so overly exhausting and I just need to sleep ASAP times). 

There’s a favorite story of ours, Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! by Candace Fleming. In the book, the main character Mr. McGreely has a lovely vegetable garden that he has worked really hard to grow. But of course, there are rabbits that keep sneaking in and eating all his vegetables. The story has a very Peter Rabbit vibe to it. 

So in attempts to solve his problem, Mr. McGreely builds all sorts of obstacles to block the rabbits from reaching the vegetables. 

However, the determined “flop ears,” keep getting in to the garden. During this whole debacle, one part in the story describes Mr. McGreely as furious. 

My 3-year-old son asked me one night, “Mom. what does furious mean?” 

“Really angry.”  I told him. “Mr. McGreely has worked really hard on growing his vegetables and no matter how much he tries, the rabbits keep getting in his garden and eating them.” I summarized.

“Oh.” John replied, his voice dropping an octave mid-word. 

My dad and I share a passion for reading. He and I have passed books back and forth to one another for many years. He recently passed a book on to me called The Furious Longing of God, by Brennan Manning. In this book, Brennan describes God’s relentless and intense love for us and uses the term, furious. 

Up until reading this book, I always thought of anger as the best synonym for furious, like I described to my son.  But now, when think of fury, I think of the intense and powerful longing love of God the Father. Brennan says, “God is sheer Being-in-Love and there was never a time when God was not love. The foundation of the furious longing of God is the Father who is originating Lover, the Son who is full self-expression of that Love, and the Spirit is the original and inexhaustible activity of that Love.” 

As I think of God in this way, it has transformed how I view this new season. Cold, frosty mornings with crispy yellow leaves hanging off tree branches and pink cotton candy sunrises are just skim off the surface of God’s beautiful love and longing. 

After school the other day, my daughter Hadley pulled out four fall leaves from her backpack. They were small and a vibrant red color with beautiful scalloped edges. 

“Hadley, these are beautiful!” I exclaimed. “Did you get these at school?”

“Yup.” She nodded with a grin. “Out on the playground. I thought you’d like them. “And look,” she pointed out, “ no rips, no holes, no tears. They are perfect.”

I’m not perfect. I’ve got lots of rips, holes and tears, but I’ve also got Jesus and his perfectly scalloped love and the Father’s vibrant, endless longing. 

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We have had a couple thunderstorms this season already, which seems a bit unusual in the Pacific Northwest. My son is deathly afraid of thunder. He has many three-year-old fears, which he would gladly rattle off to you, but this one tops the list. Not only do we need to lay with him during the night when there is thunder, he also needs to be held by us. He needs one arm around him or our body up against his. Sometimes, he squeals or whimpers when the sky booms and other times, he is completely still, too frightened to even move or make a sound. 

I, on the other hand, love thunder. Thunder has always reminded me of the power of God and how mighty He is. It comforts me and reassures me of His magnificence. When the clouds roll in and the sky darkens, His fury, like that of the gathering storm, begin to reveal His greatness and bring me to a place of reverential awe. I’m reminded again of those lyrics and that He longs for us: 

There’s no shadow You won’t light up

Mountain You won’t climb up

Coming after me

There’s no wall You won’t kick down

Lie You won’t tear down

Coming after me

So let the end of September and the start of the fall continue to be a time of mixed up chaos and peace. Let it be a song about God’s never-ending love and longing for us.