Surviving Cold & Flu Season Like a Mom of 5

As you can imagine, cold and flu season can get kind of crazy in a home with so many kids. As the years go by, we are getting more and more tricks to make things easier help get through without missing too many school and work days. I am going to give you my favorite things to do and give you a little background on our trials with sicknesses.

1.    I cannot stress to you how good of friends you should be with PROBIOTICS! We take them daily and year round with a regular gummy vitamin! I get my kids the drinkable version, they are like a tasty treat for them! This is what we use and they drink one a day. There is a cheaper brand at Walmart that is just as good (its 5 of these in a pack for $0.99. 

2.    Water. Your kids need a SHIT ton of water. My kids typically have OJ at home and ALOT of milk also. Push fluids. If they do get stuffy, stay clear of dairy (NO milk, not yogurt, etc) .

3.    Get your flu shot. You may disagree and I am not here to start a fight. Keegan has a severe egg allergy and can't get his flu shot. He gets the flu EVERY year. We all get our flu shots and none of us do. Just saying.

4. Get these throat suckers. Cough drops are not my kids favorite things in the world. These are EFFECTIVE and GOOD! I tried them (when I was not sick) and really liked them! Absolutely worth it. We did them as a collaboration and I will forever buy these! Lolleez are amazingly perfect and gave Caleb the ease to have a goodnight of sleep with a terrible cough.

You can get Lolleez just about anywhere or check out their Instagram.

Lolleez

5. Cart wipes are you best friend. USE them! Think about how many people make runs to the store when they are sick. We can't just stay home, right? Need soup, 7up, crackers, etc. Wipe your cart EVERYYYY time. 

6. LEMON TEA WITH HONEY. That is all. Drink it. 

7. GARGLE. Sore throat? Gargle with salt water. Your momma wasn't lying, it it a real thing and it works. 

Let me tell you a little story about the year that Caleb and Connor got pneumonia at the same time and were both hospitalized. It was a NIGHTMARE and I swear, I now suffer from PTSD. This happened when I was married to my ex husband and had very little help. Thank the big man upstairs for my mother who came up and stayed at the hospital during the days so I could go to work. 

Caleb was first to go down. I woke up in the middle of the night to hearing him breathing funny. Felt his head and he was burning up. He had a little cold prior to this. I took him to the hospital and after multiple breathing treatments, they could not get his oxygen levels to stabilize. He was admitted. 

The next day, I got a call that Connor was showing the same signs. The sweet nurse at the hospital agreed to watch Caleb so I could take Con to his Dr. She diagnosed him with pneumonia as well. I asked her to check his oxygen levels and she said "you don't need to worry about that unless he gets a blue color of becomes unresponsive". I was soooo angry. They gave him a breathing treatment and I decided I wanted to take him to the ER also. He was given 2 additional treatments and admitted with low oxygen levels. 

The next day, Connor's lung collapsed and they had to put him on forced oxygen for a week. I should have sure the shit out of his doctor (we switched Drs). 

Both boys healed, THANK GOD. They haven't been sick like that since and we have been crazy clean freaks and germaphobs since then!

Tell me what you guys do for cold and flu season to help you make it through....

Chore Charts For The Win

Hey guys!

So today, I want to talk about time management and how I deal with life as a mom of 5 (6 if you count Payton…lol…jk).

As you can guess, life for me is so crazy busy and constantly hectic. At one point, I literally would come home from work and cry because of everything that needed to be done (don’t think that this does not still happen sometimes)! Dinner, laundry, dishes, cleaning, baths, brushing teeth, showers, bedtime. So much to do, not enough time. I was stressing more about getting things done then actually spending time doing the things that I needed to do.

Sooooo at some point I realized that my kids also needed to be held accountable! First, I started with a basic chore chart. I bought a whiteboard for my kitchen and wrote out name, day of the week and what chore they were expected to do. Some days it worked, some days it didn’t. So I took some time to think about what might motivate them. I came to one thought. Money.

We all work to live, right? We are motivated by money, right? Why wouldn’t a 10, 8 and 6 year old (Keegan does chores, but isn’t held as accountable since he just turned 4). So now I knew that money would help, but how could I incorporate it?

I asked around to people that I know and googled (my own worst enemy), finally I got a great idea from my boss. She told me a story about how her son and his girlfriend do chore charts for money. I then came up with my own by incorporating their idea.

So I have 3 levels and each is paid differently. First level are daily chores (the have to be done) and they pay $0.25. Everyday, they HAVE to pick up their dirty clothes, make their bed, brush their teeth (I am well aware that these are NOT things we get paid for as adults, but I am trying to get them to hold THEMSELVES accountable). They have the option to do them, without being reminded or nagged, and get paid their rate per day that it is done. If they have to be told to do it, they don’t get their weekly payout.

Level 2 – These are worth $1.00 and are done everyday as well. Some examples are, sweeping the house, mopping the floors, cleaning counters, vacuuming, and cleaning the cat box (there are more), They do NOT have to do them daily, but can and can earn faster.

Last is the $5.00 bracket. This bracket is doing the dishes, cleaning the bathrooms, cleaning the playroom, cleaning bedrooms and cleaning the living room. These are weekly chores. It is their job to make sure that their area is clean and presentable that entire week.

I give them the option to pick out which chores, if any, they want to do daily. And guess what? They are now fighting over who gets to do the most chores. It is fantastic! Guess who gets to come home and cook and not clean? Even better, they asked to save their money so they can use it to Christmas shop! How CUTE and SWEET is that?!

So now, since my kids cleaned my house….I have time to write this blog and catch up on my Instagram! I am able to come home, deal with homework (they have had it all done lately), make dinner and give baths and then spend time with them! I put them to bed and get time to do what I want. I typically only blog and Instagram on nights that Payton works though. Since his shifts are so long, I prefer to spend as much time with him as I can.

So, do you guys use money to entice your kids? If not how do you do it?