This Christmas

If you follow me on twitter, you know that our major Christmas gift this year was some strain of the bubonic plague. Our first inkling of the sickness was Christmas Eve. Luke fell asleep at about 3pm, which is unusual because Luke doesn't nap. Hasn't napped for about three years, but I figured, hey... Christmas miracle! Truthfully, we'd had such a busy weekend that I thought he was just worn out and got ready for Christmas Eve church. Time went on and he kept sleeping. My parents came over for dinner and to go to church with us. Luke was still sleeping. I finally nudged him awake and he said he wasn't feeling well. I carried him downstairs, put him on the couch... and he promptly threw up all over the carpet. This is the kid who, by the way, aside from one minor ear infection early on in the school year has been healthy all year. So sick on Christmas Eve? Major insult, universe. My parents said they would stay home with the kids so we could go to church, as Shane and I do the reading at church every year. We headed out and told the pastor we would need to leave as soon as we did the reading, since we had a sick little guy at home.

After the reading, we came home and Luke was up and running around the house, which gave me hope that he was feeling better, that maybe the sick was just a fluke and he'd eaten something that didn't agree with him. We had all of our fingers crossed and kissed him and tucked him into bed and told both boys they had to get to bed for Santa.

The next morning, both boys catapulted out of bed at 6. Both seemingly healthy, both overjoyed that Santa came.

Santa doesn't wrap presents, by the way. Santa is lazy.

Unfortunately, we quickly learned that the fluke was not Luke being sick the night before. The fluke was Luke somehow feeling better long enough to unwrap presents at our house Christmas morning and head to my parents' house to unwrap presents over there. I have no idea if he somehow managed to power through because it was Christmas or if there was a lull between the sicknesses, but by afternoon he was running a 103 fever and passed out on the couch.

There's really nothing sadder than a kid who is too sick to play with his new toys on Christmas.
We headed home and put him to bed. The next day, I took him to urgent care where he was diagnosed with a bronchial infection and given antibiotics. By that evening, I was throwing up. By the next morning, Tommy was, too. Unfortunately, my stomach flu wasn't as quick as Luke's and I was sick for 48 horrendous hours. By the time I stopped with the stomach flu, I was already congested. You know how after you have the stomach flu, all you want to do is rest? I couldn't lie down because I was so stuffed up and couldn't stop coughing or breathe through my nose. It was miserable. Tommy through this ran a 103 fever. Once his stomach flu passed, he was congested, too. Back to urgent care, where I was diagnosed with a sinus infection and Tommy a double ear infection.
And we had another kid to sick to play with his new toys.

The wait at urgent care, by the way, was over two and a half hours because everyone in the whole wide world is sick.

In short, this Christmas break was not the Christmas break we'd planned at all. Thankfully, Shane managed to stay healthy. I don't know what we would've done if he'd been sick, too. All I would like now is for the three of us to get over the last of this congestion (oh, and for my feet to heal, too, because I would really, really like to run again) and salvage our last few days of break. Today we actually left the house and went somewhere other than the pharmacy and urgent care! I hope your Christmas was much healthier than ours.