I don't even know where to start...

So many things have happened this week and I hardly know where to start with the telling of the craziness. I wrote that Misaki was sick last week but at the time it didn't seem like that big of a deal. She threw up a half a dozen times in the space of four hours and then she was fine and even went to school the next day. Plus she's old enough to take herself off to the sink to throw up instead of throwing up all over the floor (except for the first time because it caught her off guard since she hasn't thrown up for at least two years). You may be wondering why she's throwing up in the sink and that's because my girls are afraid of throwing up into the toilet. Or maybe the very idea just grosses them out. Whatever. I washed my sink with strong disinfectant and very hot water and we were good to go.

On Sunday, we went shopping with my in-laws for a printer. My MIL just bought her very first computer last week. It's a laptop and she really has no idea what to do with it. I could write more about this but it would just be mean. OK, one story. After we had finished shopping, my MIL said that there were some messages on the computer that she didn't understand. We went down to the parking lot and Chikara took a look at it in the car. He explained a couple of things and then said that everything was OK. My MIL said "arigato" and pressed the power button to turn the computer off. My husband took a short, sudden breath in followed by a moment of silent shock and then patiently showed his mom the Shutdown Menu one more time. We feel a little bit bad for her computer.

Anyways, they didn't find a printer, but as we were helping them out we found a TV. Woo-hoo! It's not a fancy TV, but it fits our needs. Lately, our TV screen has been going to black. This drives the girls nuts. They'll be watching TV as they eat their breakfast and then suddenly all hell breaks loose and they're screaming and jumping up and down. This has been going on for awhile but if you turn off the TV and then turn it on again then everything is fine. Around February we decided that we needed to get a new one so we began the search. We really wanted to get a flat screen TV but we could not believe the prices. We really like TV but not that much. Even though we have the money we could not justify such an expenditure. So we started searching for a regular TV but so far we hadn't had any luck. As we were weaving through the aisles, trying to make our way out of the store, we suddenly spotted a regular TV in a really odd location so we moved closer to check out the price and it was perfect. When Chikara paid for it, they said it would be delivered on Friday.

Monday passed by quickly and on Tuesday, while I was gone to teach my English class, Emi got sick. She threw up a couple of times and by the time I got back home, she had a fever and her face was pretty white but her tummy was feeling better. I decided that she should stay home from school the next day. On Wednesday, we called a tatami repair store near us and asked them to come in and re-cover our tatami. We made an appointment with them for Thursday morning. I was so excited. When you move into a new house in Japan, you're supposed to get new tatami, but when we moved three years ago, we couldn't afford it and I was going to have a baby soon so we didn't give it much thought. During Spring Break, a hole was torn in one of the tatami so I decided it was time we did something about it. I couldn't put Natsuki down on the floor because of all of the debris. Sakura thought it was fun to pull more tatami out of the hole to "clean" it.

The tatami guys came Thursday morning and took away all the tatami (six of them). I cleaned the floor while they were gone and around 6 hours later they were back and put our living room back in order. Just before they came, Sakura woke up suddenly from her nap screaming and saying that her tummy hurt. As soon as the tatami guys left, Sakura and I went to pick up Misaki from the bus stop. As we arrived back home, Emi came walking down the street back from school. We all marched upstairs and Sakura promptly threw up on the couch. I don't think Sakura's ever had stomach flu before and throughout the next few hours, it was such a task to get her to throw up into any sort of container or to get her to open up her mouth and spit it all out or to stay on the waterproof mat. During that time, Natsuki woke up and I fed her and then tried to keep her entertained but at a safe distance from Sakura. Emi & Misaki went out with Chikara's parents so at least they were out of my hair. Chikara came home around 7 and by that time Sakura was done with the throwing up and Natsuki was in bed for a little nap. By 8, Sakura was in bed and I attended to Natsuki and put her down for the night. Emi & Misaki came home around 9 and they promptly went to bed too. Even though it was a long day, at least the puking was over although I was really praying that Natsuki wouldn't get it.

By Thursday evening, I was pretty tired but also happy that we had accomplished so much in one week. We found a TV, had the tatami replaced, I bought a mat/rug thing to put down in the living room for Sakura to play on and finished all of the laundry that's been piling up. Also we dealt with three sick girls and I was relieved that they were all better.

Friday morning, our TV came and we are all thrilled. The day went pretty smoothly and when Chikara came home we decided to go to Costco. It's about a 45 minute drive so I brought some snacks for the girls to eat in the car. There wasn't too much traffic so we weren't delayed at all. Natsuki had pooped while we were driving so as soon as we arrived I took her to the bathroom and changed her diaper. It was dinner time so we decided to eat first and then shop. Chikara found a seat and as I turned to go buy the dinner, Sakura said that her tummy hurt. I thought that she was just saying that because of all the special attention she had received while she was sick so I picked her up to take her with me. We hadn't gotten more than 20 steps away when I felt her body roll in my arms. I held her a little bit away from me to ask if she was okay and before I finished my sentence she threw up all over me. On my face, my shirt, my shoes and all over the floor right in the middle of Costco. People came running from all over to help us. As I started wiping I realized that Sakura didn't get any throw-up on herself, only on me and the floor. How did she do that? I went to the bathroom and washed off my sandals and then grabbed my wallet and went through Costco and bought a new shirt. As I was walking around, I got the weirdest looks from people. I felt like stopping to tell everyone what had happened but I just kept moving until my shirt was changed. I actually threw my dirty shirt in the garbage. I just couldn't deal with it.

At this point, I couldn't decide what we should do. On the one hand, I just wanted to go home but we had come so far and we don't get a lot of chances to go to Costco. Also, by this time it was way past dinnertime and the girls really needed to eat. Grrr! We decided to risk it and stay at Costco. Chikara found a small box for Sakura just in case she needed to throw up again. I ordered pizza, clam chowder, chicken caesar salad and pop for all of us. We divided it all up and ate as quickly as we could. Once the food was spread out, Sakura asked for some pizza but I absolutely did not want a repeat of what had just happened so she just had something to drink.

With dinner out of the way, it was time to shop. We went out the exit to re-enter the store and the gate was closed. Seriously, at this point, I just wanted to cry. Fortunately all of the staff had seen the puking incident so no one stopped us when we went back through the exit to shop again. I only had a few minutes so Chikara watched the girls while I ran through and got the stuff I needed. I was so glad when everything was finished and we were able to go home. I let Sakura sit in the front with me in the car on the way home, just in case, and she seemed fine. Really fine. Totally and completely fine. Little monkey!

This is one of the downsides to having four kids. They pass the same sickness around so I have to go through the same procedure many times. Fortunately Natsuki still sleeps in a different room so she seems to be spared from the germs of her older sisters but eventually this will change. So not looking forward to that.