Well, it is now the 28th and I am having a little trouble keeping up with the blog over the holidays! We had a pretty good Christmas overall but I wanted to share the story of the Miller Christmas Eve.
My eyes open at 8am when my adorable 2.75yo son came in my room and said "Mommy, I don't feel any good," Before I could ask what was wrong it became very obvious as he blew chunks all over my blanket. I do not normally rise quickly, but today was an exception! I hustled him off to the bathroom and then put my husband in charge of the kids as I had Tons of last minute shopping to do before I had to work that evening. He puked again once before I left but at this point I assumed that he had probably overdone it on the cookies the night before, as we had celebrated Christmas with my family that night.
When I got home from shopping Ryan informed me that Zeff had continued to vomit, every 20 minutes or so!
This is where it begins to get crazy... We now needed to figure out who would stay home with the sick kid while I went to work and Ryan went to see Jossy perform at our church's Christmas service. As we were discussing and making frantic phone calls to my cousin and our moms it became apparent that Zeff actually needed to go to the doctor as he hadn't kept anything down in many hours, had hardly peed all day (sign of hydration) and was getting more and more lethargic. This further complicated matters as we only have one car that I can drive and the kids can ride in. We finally ended up having my mom pick me and Jossy up and drive me to work and then take J to church and watch her performance. This gave daddy the minivan to take the boys to Urgent Care (baby was fine, he is just difficult for other people cause he is very used to us and we wanted my mom to be able to enjoy the performance without having to deal with the baby). The plan was then that my mom would bring J home after church, unfortunately Zeff didn't improve at all, and kept refusing fluids at the UC so he needed to stay for a long time having IV fluids (poor baby!) and Ryan was still not home by the time Jossy was done at church. So! My mom had to take J home with her (on Christmas eve!!) when Ryan got home, he thought about taking the boys and going to get Joss but at this point Zeff spiked a low grade temp(100 F). Throughout all this I have been at work trying to coordinate everything and figure out what is going on with Zeff. I had also been on the phone explaining to Joscelyn that while I had left Santa a voice mail telling him where she would be, I wasn't sure if he would check it that night since he was probably all ready out delivering toys.
During this I also managed to have Christmas eve supper with my brother who was also working. He then offered to drive me home, even though it would mean him having to stay an hour later after he got off work. I gratefully accepted his offer. He then ended up being asked to stay for a double, which he agreed to, with the stipulation that he still be allowed to drive me home on the clock! So at least he was getting paid while he drove me home!!
Anyways, I got home then Ryan went and got Jossy (a 1 hour round trip drive at midnight on Christmas eve!) and we proceeded to have a lovely Christmas morning with our kids. Zeff was all better Christmas day, but we still stayed home from our noon visit to relatives and didn't leave the house till we went to my m-i-l's for Christmas Day supper.
Whew! That was exhausting to write and I hope not too boring to read. It was a Christmas eve that will live down in our family's history I think! I recently read about a study that showed mother rats handled stress better than rats who didn't have children. I think there is something to that. It seems like the more kids you have, the more variables are in place to mess up any plans you might make! But you do handle it better. Despite being worried about Z and having to be at work, we still got everything coordinated, with the help of our wonderful relatives esp my mom - THANK YOU MOM!
So we are now in the post-Christmas funk and I do think I will start school back up tomorrow as we never got any unit studies together as planned due to so much sickness in our house. I still don't feel like the time was wasted, Jossy has made a ton of progress in her reading this month and is really interested in and plays around with adding numbers quite a bit. She has a fair amount of addition facts memorized and even a couple multiplication that I am sure she doesn't understand.
Zeff has also continued to show improvement in his behavior and I think is on track to start a little bit of home-preschool in the Fall. We were playing with an alphabet puzzle yesterday and he surprised me that he haslearned a few more letters. I confess that I don't often point out letters to him, but his big sister delights in playing teacher when she can corral him into being her class and has gone over our ABC chart with him a few times. Kids are so cool!
Keian is really growing into a chubby, dimply, sweet-natured baby boy. He is not a newborn at all anymore (3 mos. now!) and is starting to enjoy rattles and spending time on his tummy. He is also very giggly and ticklish and just delightful! Ryan said he didn't cry once last evening while I was at work and I believe it. He is very good at giving cues about what he needs before getting upset and Ryan is so good at picking up on them. It sure seems a shame to stop having kids now, when we are getting good at it! Right now he is snoozing in my sling while I write and it is sooo lovely. But alas, laundry is calling me, so I must bid today's blog session adieu!