Back on our feet!

We are all pretty much healthy now and things are beginning to feel somewhat "normal" around here. Lucy is officially 3 now! Her birthday was just yesterday. We went to the Malt Shop where she had her all-time favorite meal: macaroni and cheese followed by strawberry ice cream.

Lucky us, we only live about 10 blocks from the restaurant, and she wanted to walk home. Having just consumed a humongous hot-fudge-banana malt (my all-time favorite meal), I was happy to indulge her. D drove home with J, and she and I proceeded to have a lovely evening walk, just the two of us. We looked at flowers, said hello to bumblebees, walked up and down steps, searched for kitties, hugged trees, and just generally had a nice time together.

When we were sick, she and I spent hours each day, lying in bed, "doing stickers," reading stories, cuddling, and napping. Now that we are better and life's usual pace has swept us up again, we're missing each other a bit, so this was a nice chance to reconnect and just have some time together. And so much more fun than lying in bed, convalescing together!

The thing that ate my family

So, the day Julian's high fever broke, Lucy woke up with a moderately high fever, which quickly got higher and higher. You know where this is going. Fools that we were!We had just been breathing a sigh of relief that no one else in the family got the bug from Hell that took down my baby boy for a week.

So, of course, the Bug from Hell took me down, and Lucy too. Until last week, I didn't know an adult could sustain a fever of 103 for days on end. I was shivering, sweating, crying and basically just trying to get through. Couldn't eat due to the bleeding sores in the back of my throat. Couldn't see due to my mysteriously burning, burning eyes. Lucy's fever and tummy ache lasted a full week, the fever and other monstrous symptoms hung on to me for only about four days. But let me tell you, the past two weeks have been awful. The three of us have been sicker than we have ever been in our lives. I would not wish this on anyone, not anyone. D has so far been spared this miserable thing, and its a good thing too, this house would have fallen completely apart without him to take care of us these past couple weeks.

I'm contining my quest for medical practitioners, of every ilk, (eastern/western/traditional/alterative) to help me figure out what I need to do to make this The Year of Good Health for my family. So much sickness last year nearly sent me over the edge, and besides, I like to think that we are a healthy lot, overall. We eat well, practice good hygeine, so what gives? There must be something bigger going on here, that we all keep getting sick. I just want to get to the bottom of it, and get us all healthy.

I'll write more when I am coherent. We are on day 2 of recovery from this thing and we had a B-day party for Lucy today. It was a fun party, and so great to see the family, but she and I are both pretty wiped out from it all. Julian is happy and lovin' life, and Dom is still holding steady.

hello again

OK, It's been a veryveryvery long time since I posted anything here. Sorry about that. Recovering from our chronic condition of trying to do too much. We had a rather busy few weeks there, with a trip to northern WI for a vacation with Dominic's family at a northwoods cabin, shortly followed by a glorious and long trip to the Colorado Rockies. We've been home from Colorado for a week now, but J has been sick with an extremely high fever which just broke yesterday.

So, trying to settle back into a routine is tough. But we're getting there. If anyone is actually still reading this, I'll post more often from now on.

As for the Compact, there's not much to say, other than things are stil going just fine and although I am still so weary of the whole clothing issue, everything is going well. The kids' birthdays are both this month and luckily last Christmas when D and I made the decision to undertake a year of no-buying, we set aside a few Christmas presents for this very occasion. J's birthday was last weekend, but the poor little dude had a fever of 103 so wasn't much in the partying mood. We're headed to my mothers this weekend for a belated birthday celebration, and hopefully everyone will be in good spirits.

With two kids' birthdays just weeks apart, I see the point in having one big family get-together to celebrate both. On the other hand, I am a bit leery of "watering down" each party-birthdays are so special, and I want each of my children to feel their day is a celebration of his/her uniqueness and arrival on this big ol' hunk of dirt. If we start combining parties, will that be ost somehow?