A Christmas Sob Story

I think I'm in HELL.

Those of you who read my other blog might have read this recent post. It was all about how excited I was for Christmas, how it's my favorite time of year, how it's so magical through the eyes of a child.

Yeah.

We picked up Miles from daycare on Wednesday (Christmas Eve Eve) only to learn that 3 kids were out sick with the stomach flu.

Crap.

One hour later Miles threw up.

Crap.

Christmas Eve Day he seemed fine. We all seemed ok, except that I was getting a nasty cold (that Miles already had). I thought we were in the clear.

Christmas Eve: I felt fine at church, then somewhere in the 10 minute drive to my parents' house for Christmas dinner I started to feel really sick. I hardly ate anything (which I was grateful for later). Halfway through the gift opening I waived the white flag. I knew I was not well, so we went home.

To make a long story short, I spent more time hugging porcelain than hugging my family members this Christmas and I am NOT ok with that.

Christmas Day was even more fun because Grant hopped on the stomach flu train. He called my mom and she immediately came over and whisked Miles away. THANK GOD. We were both so weak and sick...it was not pretty.

And to top it all off I also have this raging cold with the super bad cough, sinus pain and all. And Miles has decided to be a HUGE pill today and basically cry and scream about everything. EVERYTHING. My parents said he was an angel for them: he never once cried or whined about anything, slept 12 hours straight, took a 3 1/2 hour nap, was happy and playing so nice the entire time. Then he comes home to us and is a totally different kid: he hits us, throw his toys, cries about everything and wakes up crying at 5:30 a.m. WTF.

Now my entire extended family is sick. My nephews, my aunt, my mom...and the rest are to follow.

Merry Christmas to us.

I am not going to start my gratitude journal until this is all over. As you can tell, I am a little bitter about all of this. Christmas cannot be recreated because my parents are snowbirds and are supposed to leave for Arizona tomorrow or Tuesday. Or whenever they are well enough to travel.

Generally I would not be so negative about all of this. I would just say such is life and roll with it. Being sick happens. But it ruined our Christmas. And because of that I am just so so so sad. Yes, this too shall pass. It could be worse. Blah blah blah. I know, I know. But for right now I am allowing myself to mourn this magical holiday that didn't happen for us.

You really learn who your friends are when you are having a rough time of it. The notes and emails from friends who were checking in with us these past few days have been really wonderful. Somehow just knowing there were good thoughts coming our way helped us tremendously. AND this has made me appreciate, once again, what a wonderful family we have. My parents didn't even think twice about helping us out, even though they knew they were exposing themselves to possible illness. That's love, I tell ya.

The next post will hopefully be much less Debbie Downer and way more Pollyanna Sunshine. Here's hoping...