New Year, Strike the Happy

Short version: Our furnace stopped working consistently yesterday, and it got to 15 degrees below zero last night.

Thankfully, there's a propane stove downstairs that will actually heat the whole house to relatively comfortable temperatures, but it was colder upstairs than downstairs, so A. and I slept on the fold-out bed in the downstairs room where the fire is. We put Poppy's bassinet right next to the fire. The other kids all sleep downstairs and we left their doors open so they could get enough heat.

This all would have been fine and dandy (sort of), except for the fact that Poppy was crying and fussy and keeping everyone awake. Also, she kept throwing up. She spits up quite a bit anyway, but this was straight-up throwing up everything she was eating. She was obviously sick.

Jack had been complaining all evening of a tummy ache, so I was expecting something dire in the near future.

Sure enough, Jack woke up at 11:15 p.m. while I was trying to comfort a crying Poppy and promptly threw up in his bed. A. changed his sheets and pajamas and put him back to bed. I gave up on being in the warm room downstairs and brought Poppy upstairs* to stay in the bed with me in the hopes that everyone else might be able to sleep.

It was a New Year's Eve that will live on in our memories, to say the least.

A service guy is coming out today to look at the furnace, and we're crossing our fingers that he can actually fix it.

After some Internet research, A. is afraid the problem is simply that propane doesn't work properly in the temperatures we've been getting. He's getting his kerosene heater in working order as a back-up heat source, because it's supposed to get to 27 degrees below zero on Friday.

Now we'll just hope that our New Year's Day pork, greens, and black-eyed peas bring us our health, wealth, and happiness sooner rather than later. In the form of a working furnace and no more vomiting children.

Happy New Year, my lovelies. Cross your fingers for us.

* It was 62 degrees upstairs, so it's not as if it was life-threatening up there. It's just that she had to be next to me in the bed to be warm enough to sleep, which means I don't really sleep. But at least five of the six people in the house were sleeping.