Christmas 2010

I love Christmas, but this year it has really been a struggle. It has been one illness (setback) after another. The day after Thanksgiving, Veronica developed croup & coughed and cried her way through the next several days (first dr. visit, Prednisone to help her breathe). Within a few more days the kids each fell to strep throat and after a week of my natural cure-all they weren't any better and Lauren's pustules in the back of her throat appeared to be filled with blood and she looked absolutely horrible. So back to the doctor we went! After arguing with the doctor that the kids HAD strep (he doubted my diagnosis until the swab came back positive), I left with two prescriptions for Augmentin. Calling the pharmacy a few days later I said I needed more and they refilled it...for the third child (unbeknowst) to them. Three days later, Kimmy appeared at breakfast a bit spotted...looked like prickly heat. Thinking it was scarlet fever we returned to the doctor, who doubted my diagnosis as she never had a high fever, but was perplexed as to what it could be...by the next day we knew it was an allergic reaction when she had some difficulty breathing and was covered from head to toe with huge hives (the tiny spts gathered together in the night to gang up on her). I called the doc immediately and they wanted her to finish the baby's Prednisone, take Benadryl by the handfuls and then called in more Prednisone...she was on that for five days. 24 hours later the first child began to feel sick. A violent stomach virus invaded our home and kept us captive for the next several days. Thankfully each of us only had it maximum nine hours, but it was hard! Two of the kids broke blood vessels in their faces...yes, they'd thrown up that hard! Paul came home and got it...then a friend came to play a week later; he got it within 12 hours. Friends came to help out after Veronica got into the medicine cabinet and we were transported by ambulance from the ER to the children's hospital and had to stay a fitful night of monitoring...those friends got sick! I feel like putting a quarantine sign up on the front door! Amidst this, Advent passed quickly and quietly. Before we knew it, it was just a few days from Christmas and we'd done little to no preparation.

I quickly sounded the troops and we got a tree (sadly without the whole family, but daddy was sick, Kat was working and well, it just didn't work out for us this year). Thankfully I'd done my shopping quite early this year, so that was almost all done. But baking would have to be content to wait a year. We did a few things, but not nearly what I usually did!








We still managed to pull off Christmas successfully! The kids had a blast and we got to enjoy family and friends over the holiday! We missed those who are far away from us, but know that the coming year will be full of excitement with two friends daughters getting married, Katherine graduating and entering college next fall, Megan getting a driving permit (heaven help us) and continuing to compete in swimming. Stephen has his calendar filled with scouting events and Veronica has us all running around trying to keep up with her (and keep her safe). Hope everyone has a joy filled Holy-day!