I’ll look back on this Christmas break someday and laugh, or at least cringe slightly less, but for now, I admit, I’m bitter.  I save my meager vacation time every year so I can have a good week off around Christmas.

I want a redo.

For those of you who only want the smiley stuff, skip this one… the next one will be sunshine and lollipops again, I’m sure.

This one is purely me huffing and puffing.  For those of you who like horror shows, read on…  Be warned… it is ridiculously long.

(Okay, it wasn't alllll bad.  There are some good parts mixed in.)

Saturday, Dec 20th

I packed up half our house, then bundled Harlow in the car at 10am Saturday to head to J&J Ranch for our family Christmas luncheon.

Usually Harlow falls asleep on the drive, but she wasn’t having it this time.  She cried to the point of throwing up!  I actually had to shoot to the side of the highway & jump out to help her because she was choking on it!  When I got her cleaned up & calmed down, we started out again.  Thankfully, this time she fell asleep.  I was frazzled & seriously ready to turn around, but I kept going.  (Chris was driving separately since he had to go back to work the week.)

Lunch was actually really nice.  We did our annual “Christmas Family Photo”.

2014

After, we went back to my parent’s house to let the kids open gifts and to get a visit from Santa Claus!

Harlow wasn’t really feelin’ Santa.  (Yes, I had a wardrobe change for her.)

This is where things started to go to CrapTown, people…

Chris left to go back home… I didn’t even think to be worried about him because it was, for a change, not snowing or freezing rain or anything.  After he left, I noticed Harlow was super sleepy, so I went to put her in her jammies.  She felt hot to me, so I took her temperature and it was 103.  I stripped off her heavy velvet dress and took her out to be assessed by the four mothers and paramedic in the family (my three sisters, step-mom, and dad).  They agreed that she had a heavy dress on and had been running around and was probably just overheated.  I called Chris to get his opinion.  I told him I was going to run to get some Baby Tylenol, and he told me to stay put… he’d just come upon a horrible accident.  He said the flames were 8 feet high.  We found out later that there was at least one fatality.  Icy roads.  I was a wreck until he got home safely, but he was really shaken up.

I did end up going downtown (only a mile) and getting the Baby Tylenol for Harlow.  I put her to bed in the cooler basement where we stay, and assumed she’d be fine.

At about 1am, she started fussing, so I picked her up and checked her temp.  It was 103-point-something.  Instantly, she started throwing up all over and shaking.  I raced up the stairs with her, got my step-mom up, who took one look at her and got my dad up.  He checked her out and we decided it was serious enough to go to the Emergency Room.  I called Chris and woke him up on the way.

We ended up being there from about 1:30am until almost 5am.  The doctor checked her all out, ran some tests, and concluded that she just had a virus.  They gave her something to lower her temp, with instructions on how to control it, and the warning to come back immediately if A, B, or C happened.

Let me just say… I’m SO lucky to have the parents I do.  They were amazing.  My dad was a paramedic years ago, so that probably helped, but I felt so… I don’t know.  It was like clock-work.  They did everything, and I just focused on Harlow.

Anyway.  So, we go back to the house, Harlow and I crash for a while.

Sunday, Dec 21st & Monday, Dec 22nd

I had been planning on going to church to see my niece play her violin, but Harlow and I just bummed around the house instead.  Her temp was still high 101-102, but it never hit 103 again.  She did have a little diarrhea, too, but no more throwing up.  Mostly, I just watched her carefully, tried to get her to drink (the doctor said she probably wouldn’t eat, and she didn’t) and counted wet diapers… there were scary few.  A quick call to our own pediatrician on Monday reassured me, though, and with more things to watch for, he said she was very probably just fine, and we’d just have to wait it out.

My step-mom offered to watch Harlow so my dad, brother, & I could go and do some last-minute Christmas shopping.  I was starting to feel a little bad, myself, but really needed to get some stuff done.

For the record, this is my brother… he’s still single, ladies…

After I put her to bed Monday night, my step-mom offered to keep an eye on Harlow again, so I met up with my sisters for coffee & present exchange.

Tuesday, Dec 23rd

I didn’t sleep at all Monday night.  I literally spent the whole night concentrating on swallowing.  So much ouch.

I got up Tuesday morning & my step-mom and I systematically called every doctor’s office within 6 towns of us.  Nobody would see me because I wasn’t an established patient.  There are NO walk-in clinics in all of Newaygo County.  I even called my home doctor, all ready to make an appointment and go back home a day early… the receptionist informed me that my doctor was out sick, and could I possibly go to a walk-in clinic?  (Apparently we still have some in my own town.  Let me just say here, my doctor told me once that she hadn’t been sick in many, many years.)  I felt really bad about what happened next, but I was in so much pain and my last effort was just thwarted… I started bawling.  The poor lady.  She obviously felt really bad and was frantically wracking her brain to come up with a solution, even as I was apologizing for breaking down, and telling her not to worry about it.

I felt like an absolute tool, because a sore throat is not an emergency in my world, but after my last attempt to find a regular doctor was shut down… this happened.

Back to the emergency room for me!

I did feel redeemed, though, when the doctor took one peek at my throat, said, “Oh, WOW!” and ordered an inject-able steroid before even talking about antibiotics.  Like my cousin said, it is never a good thing to impress a doctor.  The nurse asked if he wanted to do a culture to test for strep, and he just gave her the most withering look, and definitively said “No.”, and shook his head at her like she was clueless.  I actually felt bad for her, even though she was the one that had earlier suggested that maybe it was the dry air that was “irritating” my throat… as if I’d go to the emergency room for an “irritated” throat.

At least the pharmacy was festive?

So Tuesday was once again spent mostly on the floor of my parents’ house, watching cartoons, and snuggling with my baby.

Wednesday, Dec 24th

The steroid kicked in Tuesday afternoon, and with antibiotics in my system, I decided to go to my mom’s side for Christmas Eve.  I only stayed about an hour, but my grandma is 97, and while I obviously kept my distance, she at least knew I was there, and got to see Harlow. Harlow was enthralled by all the kids playing.  She also got a new Cinderella Baby Doll that she LOVES.

I still wasn’t feeling great when I got home.  I feel awful for Chris.  He had all kinds of things and meals planned, and honestly, we haven’t had any of them because of how sick I’ve been.  He did give me (and Harlow) an early Christmas present, though!  I mentioned months ago that this was cool when I saw it here, and he built it for me so that Harlow could “help out” in the kitchen!  We used it to bake cookies for Santa!  He seriously thought of everything.  I had totally planned on buying cookie stuff, and had forgotten because… sick.  She had a blast.

Harlow went to bed, and I followed shortly after.  Then I woke up at 3am throwing up.

Yes, I was lucky enough to have gotten some sort of stomach bug on Christmas, on TOP of having strep throat and a sick baby.  After I threw up while we were opening presents late in the morning, I remembered still having some anti-nausea meds from when I got sick a year or so ago.  I took one and it worked!  I was really sleepy, and ended up going to bed at 8:20pm… on Christmas… but hey!

I literally just started feeling better yesterday evening… as in, the evening before having to return to work.  We usually go to my in-laws on Christmas Day, but obviously that wasn’t happening this year, so they were all able to come to us yesterday!  I was pretty much useless, just feeling blah, but it was nice.  My sister bought Harlow a giant stuffed cow that she wants to take everywhere with her.  By giant, I mean, literally.  Like, two to three times Harlow’s size.  Thanks, Lori… haha.  She also got her the bunny from Frozen that dances.  It is hilarious, but we think we got a dud, or that the batteries need to be changed because he doesn’t do… much.  Not like the video link does.  We all got a lot of great gifts.  I got zero photos, though.  I’ll have to see if either my sister or my mother-in-law can send me some…

So there’s my story.  Two emergency room visits, lots of vomit, lots of temperatures, lots of feeling crappy, some diarrhea, one scary near-accident experience, and a whole lot of Bleh.  Or should I say Bah-Humbug?

Oh, plus, Chris bought me the ring I’ve been lusting after for two years, and when he got it, he took it back to Zales and they were embarrassed that it came from them, basically.  He said it wasn’t blue at all, and basically looked like the cheapest engagement ring ever.  I was bummed that it wasn’t as nice as it appeared to be, but touched by the thought.  I didn’t even remember showing it to him!  He said we might go to a jewelry store and design one someday.  I hope so!

Okay, well, that’s my whole sad sob story.  I really and truly hope you all had better holidays than we did!

I’ll leave you with a couple of Christmas Day photos that are cute, so… yeah.  A palate-cleanser, if you will…

Santa brought Harlow a personalized chair and in her stocking, left her a cell phone!  Doesn’t she look like a mini-teenager sitting like this looking at her phone?  Lol…

Santa also left Abbey a whole stocking full of new toys!  She was in her glory!