The Longest Week of My Life

I never posted about our trip to California in early November.  There are a few reasons for this. 1. It was the longest week of my life (and it was only 6 days, so that's saying a lot).  2.  After we got back, Fiona was sick for a ridiculously long time and then it was Christmastime.

The girls and I flew out on Tuesday with my dad (thank the Lord).  Pat had to stay home to work (probably the best "vacation" he's been on in years :)  joking...not really).  We planned to stay in Anaheim overnight and surprise the girls with a day at Disneyland on Wednesday.  My mom and sister (who was spending the whole week out there) picked us up at the airport, we checked into the hotel and promptly went to dinner.  The 2 hour (earlier) time change is always tricky for my kids so we planned to keep them up as long as possible so that they wouldn't wake up at 4am.  

Fast forward to 3am, the family is in adjoining rooms with Fiona in a crib and me, Finley, and Moosh in one room, when Fiona starts to cry.  I go to see what's wrong and she pukes. A lot.  No biggie, I thought.  (although my kids have never really had a stomach virus)  We cleaned her up (yes, Moosh included!) and I put her in bed with me.  And then she puked every 10-15 mins for about 3 hours.  My parents have a washing machine at their house so I packed light.  Mid-way through this episode, we were out of clothes, wash clothes, hotel sheets, etc.  My clothes were puke filled.  I finally started to read her cues and could get her to the bathroom or into the ice bucket, but that's the thing about babies.  The can't really tell you when it's coming.  By 6am it had stopped and I didn't know what to do.  We still had 4 hours until Disneyland even opened!! Yikes!  We decided to just go for it, letting her try to take a nap before going to the park and she even chowed down some dry cereal and water at breakfast.  

We made it through Disneyland relatively safely.  We stayed for the parade (pictures to follow this post) and she puked 2 times at the parade.  Grandma is a champ and just chucked the fries out of our dinner basket and put it under Fiona just in time.  We did the Disney bathroom clean-up routine and headed the 2 hour drive home.  She was asleep from the moment the parade started until we got home (midnight Minnesota time).  Fiona and I slept in the same room and I couldn't wait to finally get some sleep.  HAHAHAHAH.  Bummer, that didn't really happen.  She was up with a fever, cough, general sickness stuff for the majority of the night.  Around 3am, my dad came to relieve me since I hadn't slept in 24 hours.  

The vacation pretty much consisted of a sick Fiona who would rally for a few hours each day, long enough for me to think she was on the upswing...only to have night fall and for the 2 of us not to sleep.  Finally on Friday night she awoke with a high fever and was shaking on me for what felt like an eternity while I put washcloths on her forehead.  Urgent Care it was.  Saturday morning we went and although the check-in process was comical (training in the new employee on us, out of state insurance, thinking I was actually Fiona seeking treatment/not her mom!  Funny side note, the clerk asked me why nothing was checked off in the section entitled "employment", questioning if I was a student.  It was very confusing until she asked "well, you are Fiona aren't you?" ahhhhhhhhhhh.  I almost lost it :)  Double ear infection, some antibiotics and we were good to go.  Well, I hoped we would be since we were flying out really early on Sunday morning.

We slept really well on Friday night until our 4am wake up call for the airport.  We got ready to leave when I noticed Finley was not in her bed.  I was then told in a calm voice by my mom "Finley threw up last night".  I panicked.  I don't fly well alone, much less with kids, much less with crying toddlers and puking kids.  My dad checked to see if my mom could come home with us - over $1000.00 so that was out.  Me and Moosh were going to have to handle this on our own!!  Oh, and then Finley puked right as we were loading the car.  A few ziploc bags and we were off.  A layover in Salt Lake City, 2 successful flights, and we were at home in our own beds.  

There were a few bright spots - as the pictures show.  The weather is almost always sunny and warm there!  The girls love the pool, swimming with Grandpa, combing the citrus trees, and I enjoyed a freshly squeezed grapefruit margarita in the hot tub for my 32nd birthday.  

It was, however, a vacation I can only now laugh about.  I cried every day and on average slept about 4 hours a night.  At one point, Moosh left to have dinner alone because she couldn't take it anymore.  I wished I could have dinner alone : )  My super awesome parents were so helpful, but even they wanted to have dinner alone for months to come after we left!  

I came to to a husband who immediately took over parenting so I could have some reprieve and he also painted our master bathroom while I was gone!!  

We are headed back in a few weeks for another visit (Pat included!) and hopefully we fair much better!  I had a small insight into what parents of chronically ill children deal with on a more regular basis and I thanked God for the overall health of my children.