My pre-holiday festivities began by pulling a virtual all-nighter the night before New Year’s Eve. I have been suffering quite a bit of insomnia as well as the effects of the flu and when I finally attempted to go to bed, Sean began crying profusely about a headache and his high fever. I got him settled, and still could not sleep. While I was waiting, I heard Michael coughing and vomiting. Rub, pat, comfort, wash, disinfect and try again. Within the hour, Gavin joined me in the living room crying and wringing his hands about nightmares. It took a loooooong time to convince him that he was safe and his imaginary nemesis was, in fact, imaginary. More coughing from Mike, more crying from Sean pushed me through until 6:30. I managed to get a little sleep before being heralded awake by Mikey’s persistent cough. (If you are wondering where Dennis was during this ordeal, maybe you should email him).
When it became clear that Mikey was going to need more medical intervention than I could provide at home we headed out on a 10 hour adventure to a local urgent care center and ultimately the ER. 7 breathing treatments, several steroids, and a saline IV later, we made it to the pharmacy in time to fill his prescriptions and pick up the last two bottles of sparkling cider that they had. We decided that Pringles would complete our New Year’s Eve menu and headed home.
As we prepared for a scaled-back celebration, Ethan called Dennis and I upstairs. It had to be both of us. He apparently had news to break to us. We found almost everything in his room boxed up and dragged into one spot in his room. “I’m outta here’, he said – he told us that he was moving out. Why? Because we are ‘old and yucky’ and our house is ‘old and yucky’. Where was he going? To a house at the beach. Who was he going to live with? A dog, ‘a woman’ and Grandma. After some fake pleading from us, Ethan concluded that he was a ‘silly goose’ and he said, ‘ok, live home!’. Good idea, E, live at home. He always enjoys packing, rearranging and organizing his things into boxes, bags, containers, and bins. Sometimes we are so thoroughly entertained by his antics.
We had planned for the evening to include friends and family, fondue, homemade ice cream and fireworks. Instead it was pajamas and Dick Clark’s Rocking Eve – we did have leftover party hats from last year, though. Everyone except for Sean made it until midnight.
It’s New Year’s Day and I wish we were sightseeing in New York City. I am envious of friends on Facebook who are enjoying road trips and grand adventures. But tonight, I am feverish and my head hurts from coughing, Sean has been in bed for 5 days, Mikey is improving, but continues to suffer the effects of his asthma and Gavin has fallen victim to Influenza A. Dennis is fighting valiantly and we are all hoping Ethan does not fall prey.
It has to end sometime and when it does I’ll be posting pictures of our next pursuit. Excuse my as I fetch some Ibuprofen and a tissue.
