A Bumpy Takeoff

A new year – new beginnings, new opportunities, new adventures. . .two parents on antibiotics, a broken down car, a cross country trip with a sick toddler, and a red eye flight back home with a sick preschooler. Ah. Clearly this year has not gotten off to the best of starts for us, but despite the challenges, I can’t help but look at my little girls and my loving husband, and just think that all of the mess just helps us appreciate the good, and the good is just too good to give the bad any real importance at all.

For the pure sake of story telling, I’ll go back to the first few days after New Year’s Eve. On the day that my husband was due back to work after a glorious week off, he called me from the office to say that he would be coming home early because he wasn’t feeling well. I immediately felt both sorry for him and incredibly jealous because I knew that he would be able to come home, crawl into bed, and nap until he felt better. Dads just get to do that. I’m not sure why or how that is fair, but someone somewhere made a decree that it is such, and it just is. Ok, no big deal. Because I love him, and because I’m just a really great wife (ha-ha), I would give him the chance to rest up and get well. He stayed home for the next two days recovering, and wouldn’t you know it – on the day he was all set to return to work, I woke up feeling miserable. Tough to pull off when you are running around with two little ones, but isn’t the title of “Mom” synonymous with Super Woman? By the second day, I managed to make it to the doctor, got on some antibiotics, and forged ahead. The only downside really of getting sick on the particular week that we both got sick was that we had a trip planned to San Diego at the end of that week. While all of this was happening, my husband was not really sleeping because he was spending most of his evenings coughing. Lovely. The cough lasted for well over a week, so keep that in mind as I continue to tell my story.

After some internal debates with myself, we decided to go forward with our travel plans. We were both feeling better and the girls were still healthy, so why not? Well, on the morning of the day we were leaving, my husband’s car broke down on his way to work. A sign? Perhaps, but if it was, we weren’t wise enough to listen. Eventually, we resolved the car situation, headed to the airport, and had a blissfully uneventful flight across the country. Thankfully, aside from my husband coughing himself awake every night, our first couple of days in SD were amazing! Legoland, time spent with family, gorgeous weather. . .and then the little one spiked a fever. Long story short, Motrin would help immediately, but she hated taking it so much that she would scream in protest for a while and then would try to fake being asleep so that we would leave her alone. Very clever actually, but I didn’t really appreciate that at 4 in the morning. To sum it up, take a sick toddler waking up every few hours and a husband with a nagging cough and put them in a hotel room with a 5 year old and a nervous mom, then throw in a little jetlag, and you get a lot of people not sleeping pretty much at all, for around 5 days. Awesome!

We somehow made it through the week, got to see some pretty amazing things regardless of the hardships, and were all set to fly home – on the red eye with two children, so perhaps we should have our heads examined for that – but then the 5 year old started to feel sick. Fever, chills, sore throat – the only thing that saved us was that she wasn’t sick to her stomach. Phew! I would have paid someone a gazillion dollars to beam us home. Turns out, the girls slept the entire flight. I’m the lucky one who ended up sitting next to a woman who spent the entire flight climbing over me to fetch coffee, snacks, conversation with the flight attendants, you name it. To top it off, when she was seated, she had her overhead light on. Why? I’ve never been happier to land in the frozen tundra of home.

So here we are, almost three weeks into the new year, and I am full of hope that there is smooth sailing ahead. Perhaps a bumpy takeoff entitles us to a calm skies going forward? This week has certainly gotten off to a great start. A girl can dream right?

Until next time,

Chief Mom Officer

CMO