Needless to say, I learned that night that once your family starts growing you should not put things off to the last minute. Because you just never know when your daughter will randomly wake up an hour after you put her in bed and throw up all over her crib. Then, after she's clean yet too upset to sleep your husband might just show you that he meant what he said for the last few hours about not feeling well. And the result of that is much, much worse. So there we were, me exhausted out of my mind, our house a disaster, my baby girl unable to sleep so she watches God Made Christmas and Praise Baby on repeat until 2am, while my extremely sick husband lays groaning on the couch and randomly dashes to the bathroom. All. night. long. Seriously. How crazy is all that. (Trust me, in the moment it seemed so awful.) I even tried to get Selah to fall asleep in her pack in play in our bedroom while Praise Baby was on...because I was just so incredibly tired. I actually fell asleep through all her fussing at me to get her out. Finally I got her to sleep in her room and went to sleep myself. And as you might guess, Christmas morning didn't exactly arrive with bells ringing and joyful caroling going on. Kevin couldn't even really get up, Selah got up late and ate a little something, then went right back down...and they both napped for 3 or 4 hours. Which, can I tell you - allowed me some seriously peaceful hours in my own home that are very rare.
I actually put on the Steven Curtis Chapman Christmas station on Pandora, and sat down at my sewing machine, being reflective, enjoying the peaceful day, and praying over and over for a dear friend who had just been diagnosed with cancer. I also couldn't stop thinking about and praying for several dear families at our church dealing with the pain of losing loved ones last year. Humbling and emotional. It was kind of special knowing the whole city was mostly at home, the streets were quiet, and I was able to enjoy some stillness of my own. I ended up being very thankful.
Poor Kevin, though - it was a rough day. He managed to take a shower and give me about an hour around 2 or 3 to watch Selah open her presents, and for our gender reveal. Which was awesome, and I'm SO thankful we saved the special finding out for that day. He then went back to bed, and I got Selah dressed to take her over to my in-laws for about an hour of Kevin's side's Christmas. She opened her presents, I revealed the gender, then we had to leave. I kept telling everyone not to get too close to Selah, and I didn't want to be there one second too long, for fear of getting anyone sick.
Kevin's always teaching Selah how to be gentle...and she was so anxious for him to be able to play again, while he was so worried about getting her sick. It was sweet.
This is what happens when you leave your husband to babysit while you're sick all day. ;)
Then on Thursday afternoon Selah woke up from her nap extremely hot and very sweet and clingy. She didn't eat much dinner and I took her temperature...which was 104. By this time my nose started getting a bit runny, as did hers. By Friday morning we were both much more stuffed up and kept sneezing, and we had been keeping track of her fever, giving her tylenol, but not that excited about it staying over 100 for awhile. She also wasn't eating much more than graham crackers and milk. So we decided to take her to the doctor before leaving town, just to make sure she didn't have anything that would be bad for being around my family and the little ones there. She tested negative for strep...but positive for the flu. Boo. She had even had the shot, and thankfully so had I. We made the very tough decision not to go to my parents' on Friday, and to miss Christmas dinner Saturday, which felt sad and a big bummer...especially since I've never missed Christmas at home.
Then by Friday night I was much worse myself, feeling feverish and my head was so stuffed, I couldn't stop sneezing, and I was wiped out. I haven't been sick like that for 2 years. It was a day of hot tea and chicken noodle soup. Kevin thought it was the flu, but I thought it was a super severe cold. And I had the flu when I was pregnant with Selah and there was definitely no denying it. But Saturday I was wiped out and in bed all day, and would randomly be sweating then cold. Thankfully Kevin was able to take care of Selah, (and Lysol the whole house), and she of course seemed to be fine other than a runny nose after her flu diagnosis. Who knew that all the while I was making our exciting announcement about Baby girl #2 I was sick and miserable in bed?! That's why I always tell my non-blogger friends that even if the gross and gritty isn't always shared, it's always there at some point. Someone even told me that day they wished I had my energy...ha. If only they knew!
All that to say by Sunday afternoon we were in a better place and decided to head up to my parents' in Indiana, especially since the other kiddos wouldn't be there anymore so we wouldn't infect them. I still didn't feel great the couple days we were there, but I was getting better, and we had a fun time celebrating Christmas and spending time with my parents.
My mom and I finished a 1,000 pc. puzzle that my brother had brought on Christmas day and started with her and my dad. This was no small feat. But we did it!
2 comments:
Oh, Page, I just wrote a fairly similar post. Pur Christmas was crazy too! : ) You got some great pictures of some sweet moments though!
Oh my word!!!! Glad you all are ok..that sounded like a really rough week for the whole family! Hopefully next Christmas will be better for you all..but like you said..you still had alot to be thankful for despite the illnesses!
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