Wednesday, For Real?

On Sunday night I made Jud promise me that I would make two phone calls the next day.  It is now late Wednesday afternoon and the phone calls were attempted (Rebecca will love the excuse for the second one — it’s long distance and my cell phone?  MIA.  Also, dead battery, so finding it will be a delightful challenge.  But, hey! What else is new).  

Monday morning dawned crisp (and I mean that with every freezing beat of my heart) and bright.  I grabbed a quick shower while I waited for Gideon to get up.  And waited. And waited. He slept in and of course this was the day I needed to get a head start on shopping at Sams Club with someone else there to aide me in purchasing and here he is, lazily sleeping in.  I am not complaining, just proving that joys of life are often wrapped in some kind of bitter paper.  He finally woke up, stunk up his room and then ate a waffle.  My shopping partner had arrived about the time he started making little noises in his room, so the timing wasn’t too off. We shielded him from the subzero temperatures with heavily thermal clothing, coat, gloves, hat and a blanket thrown over his head.  My face burned in the wind as we made our way to the door. I tried to remember that people live in places north of here, but I couldn’t remember what could possess them do such a thing.

Shopping lasted late into the morning as we hit up another store where Gideon ate his weight in samples and I got dizzy from low blood sugar and dehydration.  Thankfully they have a little deli there where I gobbled a piece of pizza to stave off the coma. Over to my parents house then to drop off the food and feed Gideon lunch.  We stayed over there that night as I was preparing food late into the evening, with my mom’s help, for the party we were throwing the next day.  Here’s the menu we’d prepared:

Appetizers: Crab dip, Spinach dip, Summer Sausage & Cheese Platter – all served with crackers

Salad: Greens, Cabbage, Carrots, French Fried Onions and dressings

Main Course: Coca-cola Ham, Rosemary Potatoes and Onions, Cranberries, Broccoli and Cauliflower Gratin and Dinner Rolls (courtesy of Pillsbury, from the frozen section.  Hey, I’m no good with yeast)

Dessert: Brownie Heath Trifle and Cream Puffs with a blackberry/raspberry reduction

So you know, just keeping it simple, and choosing dishes that we’re mainly just prep and bake kept things from getting too nutso in the kitchen day of.  Or, at least, that’s how we planned it to be.  A little after 10 pm, having assembled the trifle and boiled the cauliflower, Gideon woke up coughing.  The kind of coughing that sounds like you are dying.  The kind of coughing that I was sure was whooping cough.  You know, that super contagious childhood disease that requires everyone in the family to take antibiotics and pretty much quarantine yourselves.  Yes, that one.  Excellent.  And nerve wracking.  We packed him up and bundled him up and drove to the ER.

Inside he refused to wear the mask, even after Jud put one on himself to show him how awesome they are (which is to say, totally awesome).  He wanted none of that.  He would, however, like to play with all of the disease ridden toys in the waiting room, especially the wire ones with the little beads that you know have not been this side of sanitary in years and now your kid is going to only add to the live specimen).  Things were mercifully slow there and we were next. Right inside the door and we are next!  Who could ask for more?  

They took his vitals and he started coughing. The nurse heard it and immediately diagnosed him with croup.  She was incredibly reassuring and very sweet about it not being pertussis.  My nerves dialed down about a billion (nothing like planning a meal for 16 people and then telling them the day of that no one is going to be eating that food due to infectious disease). They gave him a breathing treatment and a steroid and told us that cold air is the very best thing for coup.  I had no idea, but look!  It is freezing here.  Freezing!  Beyond cold!  We have plenty of cold air.  Hurray! It’s just viral so there’s no meds or anything and he will be fine and all of that.  We will stop pumping heated air into his room at night and keep his cool mist humidifier pumping on high instead of low.  He’s a snotty, coughing mess today, but he’s a total trooper in spite of his stuffy head. 

The meal went fine last night. The food was good, I thought.  The game Jud had us play, fun.  And the best part is that it is one more holiday event crossed off of my to-do list. I know Christmas is supposed to be all carols and laughter and misty-eyed wonder but this year, as with the last Christmas of pregnancy, I am just feeling overwhelmed by the scheduling of it all.  At least I have the presents to the east coast in the mail and UPS tracking numbers to make sure they get there.  And, soon it will be Christmas day….

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12/17

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