Remember our snow day last week? Well, it turned into a snow WEEK. To make matters worse, both girls started getting sick and then Vann and I caught the crud. On Thursday the roads were supposed to be a TAD better – although the whole Dallas/Ft. Worth area was at a standstill because neighborhoods weren’t being salted and the roads were sheets of ice. Literally, you couldn’t even drive down your street! And as it turns out, apparently Dallas doesn’t even use salt – they think it’s bad for the roads – and instead use SAND. Which you know is a big, muddy mess when things start to melt.
Anyway, the funniest part about it was how unified everyone was. Facebook is an amazing thing. We couldn’t leave our homes, so we had a running commentary on what each and every person was doing to survive their day. My fellow mommies, especially, were using every trick in the book to keep their kids occupied without going crazy. And every day, right around happy hour, you’d see mobile uploads of homemade martinis and bloody mary’s – and we’d all drink together, knowing we weren’t the only ones.
So when Thursday rolled around and Vann and I were getting worse and I saw a window, I took it. We piled in the car and the girls and I drove the treacherous tollway south to the heart of Dallas. And when I say treacherous, I really mean it. It was a sheet of ice. I drove very slow and prayed. The whole time.
Once I made it into the city the roads were better. I headed east on I-20 towards Tyler and it was a piece of cake the rest of the way.
The next day, Baby Ella took a turn for the worst. She couldn’t be consoled and was obviously miserable. Mom said she saw her pulling on her ear, so I ran her up to the urgent care clinic, literally, 10 minutes before they closed. Ear infection. Perfect.
Saturday Charlie woke up with a fever of 102. At this point, I’m like, what else?? Really?? How can you not laugh?? I had brought a viral plague into my parent’s home.
Back to urgent care we went, basically to rule out strep, and Charlie was fine – just a virus, nothing more. We ended up driving home first thing Sunday, and thankfully, my Mom still wanted to keep Ella, even with her immense crankiness (and poor thing, who can blame her for feeling yucky!). Mom has been getting up throughout the night with her, rocking her to sleep and giving her antibiotics. That’s what I call love.
Selfishly I am glad that Charlie and I can be lazy and stay in bed today. It would be much harder to do that with a roaming and curious baby. We are planning on staying in our pj’s today, and I might eat chocolate cake for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Praying that we are all on the mend very soon.
