The Last 4 Days

A summary of the past weekend: Landon threw up 8 times in quick succession on mile 38 of 40 en route to my co-worker's Halloween party in Dallas. We had to strip him down naked in 40-degree weather and bathe him with baby wipes and then use 167 more baby wipes and a whole roll of paper towels (that I, thank God, left in the car after our Colorado road trip) to make the car inhabitable for the ride home. JP and I were both felled with a cold/cough/feverish thing later that night and spent all of Sunday on the couch, getting up only to put in a new Pixar dvd. Claire, vibrantly healthy, potty trained herself with minimal adult supervision or interaction except for the candy corns we tossed her way every time she did another successful pee or poo in the potty. We had one accident in the afternoon when JP and I fell into a stupor and failed to even occasionally ask her if she had to go, which was really our only contribution up to that point. Landon was better on Sunday, but subdued and without any appetite. Our heater broke Friday night and we woke up shivering in a room that was 58 degrees. Luckily, we have two units, and the main part of the house, including the kids' bedroom and guest room were comfortable, but sleeping in the guest room added a new layer of fun to the scratchy throat, stuffy head, tossing and turning nighttime shenanigans. Also, Landon threw up a little in his bed Saturday night and couldn't find us because we weren't in our room where we were supposed to be. Oh, and the neighbors behind us threw a huge Halloween party that blasted loud music we could hear in the guest room until 2:30 a.m. when JP finally called the police. Turns out, the parents were out of town and their newly minted college student invited all his new college friends over for a big outdoor bash. Within about 7 minutes of calling the police, everything went dark and silent and I took another dose of Nyquil and fell asleep.

I remain sick and head to the doctor in a half hour. JP went to the doctor yesterday and is now armed with a Z-pack, but still has all his symptoms. Landon is good. Claire is excellent and marched off to school this morning in her big girl panties, waving to my slumped sweatpants clad form in the car. I might have been wearing crocs. It was a low point, but I couldn't trust JP to get my drive-through Starbucks order right on the way back. I realize now how blessed we've been that in 5+ years of parenting JP and I have never both been sick at the same time. The children are basically raising themselves. And, really, they appear to be doing a fabulous job. Now I'm just waiting for Claire to take apart her crib, put together the extra twin bed, buy a mattress, and get on with the nighttime potty training- she's not yet 2 and a half, but I feel it's a reasonable adjustment of expectations. JP and I will clap from the couch. And throw her a few more candy corns.

In the mean time, I'll be on the couch flipping channels every few minutes because daytime TV is terrible and I've watched every movie we own (apparently we don't own many movies), reading every article about Hurricane Sandy on CNN and feeling a strange mix of shitty and blessed all at the same time.