Sicky Holiday

I am a big baby when I'm sick. I know it. I'm OK with that. What's worse than being sick is being sick over a holiday.

Wednesday I was the stuffy-head, sinus headache, dizzy when I stood up kind of sick. But it didn't really hit me until the afternoon.

I went out Wednesday mid-morning to meet a friend for lunch. I took the girls to a Chick-fil-a further into town to meet my friend in the middle, half-way for both of us. She brought her 20-month-old son, who I had never met. This friend and I hadn't spent any time together in 10 years or so. (I can't remember if the last time I saw her was before I got married or after, but no matter, it's been FOREVER!) We've reconnected through facebook (I LOVE facebook, it's the best online invention EVER!). While I was waiting for my friend to arrive, another friend, a mutual friend came into Chick-fil-a with her daughter and son. We had a little mini-reunion. The manager of the store was going around passing out little balls to all the children, and even gave us three moms milkshakes in honor of our impomptu reunion. It was really nice.

Of course, Little Girl pooped her pants, and we had to leave. Story of my life.

When I got home, I hosed off my Little Girl and all three of us girls had "rest" time. Little Girl and I slept for two and a half hours. What a nice rest. When I woke up, I felt awful. My sickness had really settled in at that point. I could handle being upright in my chair, so long as my fist and elbow could prop up my head. I was really quite pitiful. I did take medicine, I was doing what I could to find relief. It just wasn't really in the cards for me.

Thursday morning, I was really feeling a little better than I had been the day before. We had planned to go to my mother-in-law's house for the day, spending as much of it as possible up there. I got a bag together with pj's for the girls, extra pairs of pull-ups for Little Girl, and blankets for them to cuddle with on the way home, another bag with a dish and the ingredients for my contribution to the big meal which I didn't have the energy to put together the day before, and another bag of outgrown clothes to pass on to my little nieces. We got ourselves out the door at 9:18, only 18 minutes off from the target leave time, a relative success. I grabbed a Coke Zero on my way out the door. Little did I know that would be the last caffiene I would get for the rest of the day. I forgot to take my decongestant. Bad move.

When we got there, I joined in the meal prep with my mother- and sister-in-law, threw my yummy corn dish together, and generally tried to help without getting in the way. Those times are fun times. If you're going to have to work in the kitchen, you might as well do it with 4 or 5 women, all laughing and carrying on and having a good time.

Grandmom, my mother-in-law's mother, now 86 years old, was also there, and my sister-in-law's mother, Linda, as well. Grandmom is one of my favorite people. Since even before marrying my Hubby, she's been like my own grandmother. Sadly, she hasn't been quite the same since her stroke 3 and a half years ago, and doesn't remember things, and doesn't want to talk anymore. She's still a very sweet lady, but her spark is gone. Linda was widowed when her son was in college, before he and my sister-in-law got together. Ever since they married, Linda has been included in our family's gatherings, as her son is an only child, and when he's with us and our family for whatever holidays, she would be alone. She's a lovely person, and I'm glad she comes and joins us.

We had a lovely meal of turkey and ham, my corn pudding, green beans, spinach salad with strawberries and pecans. Much to the chagrin of my husband and Grandmom, there was no traditional mac & cheese on the menu. In it's place was a Paula Deen potato dish, which was yummy, but not something my picky Hubby would eat. He also doesn't eat ham or the corn pudding. He just doesn't know what's good.

The kids present were my two girls, and my nieces, Leslie and Kenna. Leslie is 4, but she's tiny. She's been tiny her whole life. This year there was much celebration that she was actually ON the growth chart, at 15th percentile for height and 20th percentile for weight. She's wearing 2T clothes, but really needs 3T for length. So she either wears highwaters that stay on , or pants that are long enough, but continually falling down. Poor girl. And Kenna is a much more normal-sized 2-year-old. She's also wearing 2T clothes. Both girls are very sweet. We had all four of them sitting together at the "kids' table" this year, and that worked out pretty well. Our girls ate most of their food, and didn't fuss too much. What more could we ask?

The afternoon was spent watching Dallas Cowboys football, alternating with HGTV when the men fell asleep. Hubby fixed some stuff on my mother-in-law's computer. (He is the best free tech support anywhere!) The two men also got out my mother-in-law's Christmas trees for her. They were erected in their places, but not decorated. The little girls never took naps. That was a problem later.

Throughout the day, my headache was growing and growing. It wasn't until the mid afternoon that I found out that I had been drinking decaf tea all day. No wonder. I need my caffiene. By dinner time, I was really hurting.

My mother-, sister- and brother-in-law, Hubby and I all played a game together, taking a break to feed the fussing children dinner. The no-nap day was a problem for Kenna. The wheels were coming off the cart for her. She was really cranky, poor kid. Once the kids were fed, we finished our game, which ran into the big football game starting. All of my Hubby's family went to Texas A & M, and are all rabid Aggie fans, even when the team is bad, like this year. The UT/A & M game is a big deal every year, although this year UT has a really good team, and A & M has the worst team in 10 years, so the outcome hasn't been in question since the beginning of the season. About an hour into the game, Hubby said he didn't want to watch any more, and we started home.

By then my headache was screaming at me. I didn't want to hold my head up anymore. I rode the whole way home with my elbow on the passenger side window and my head resting on my fist. As we rode, I could feel my insides churning and churning. When we got home, I carried Little Girl up to her bed, and then I didn't want to go back downstairs. I felt so bad. I put on my pj's and went to bed. If only that were the end of the story... How much do you want to know? Is it enough to say that I was sick into the trash can twice? Probably. So that's all I'll say. And I went to bed, without ingesting the caffiene or the pain medication I so badly needed to relieve my headache.

And so far this morning, I haven't really tried to eat anything. But I've had most of a Coke Zero. I think I really need to eat. I guess that's next on the agenda. I really want to be well. Tomorrow we're having some dear friends over, and my parents too. We're going to have a good time playing games and eating, and I'm not going to be sick anymore. I'm going to will myself well.

To cleanse my head of the Weird Al kick I've been on lately, I put the old stand-by Fleming & John CD in the player in my car, The Way We Are. I love that CD. It's my absolute favorite of all time. Big Girl loves it too, and her favorite song is "I'm So Small," the rock version. They have 2 versions of it on the CD, and the other is jazz. I don't know which I like better, it depends on the mood I'm in. The song currently in my head, from that album is "The Pearl." Good stuff.