Things That Happened Last Week

I know it’s not completely unusual these days for me to go several days without posting. But this past week? Wow, it was a doozy.

Last weekend was Michael’s birthday weekend. He didn’t feel well on Friday and had stayed home from work, and was kind of still “off” on Saturday. So we didn’t do a whole lot. But on Sunday (his actual birthday), Nora and I were going to make him a cake, and we were going to make a really nice dinner at home.

We woke up, we made smoothies (pineapple coconut) for breakfast. Nora and I had wrapped Michael’s gifts the night before and she was dying to give them to him, so we did that first:

Vivienne had been fighting a fever since Friday night, and did not seem to be feeling well at all.

I was a little worried about her, but around 9:30, Nora and I went into the kitchen to get started on the cake. Only the recipe I had bookmarked for a milk-free chocolate cake turned out to be much more complicated than I initially realized. So I started searching for another one on the iPad… but in the meantime, I started feeling lousy. Really, really lousy. I had to cease and desist on the cake-making to lie on the couch.

Which led to me lying in bed with the shakes and aches.

Which led to me PUKING MY EVER-LOVING GUTS OUT.

I was so unbelievably uncomfortable. And I could not keep ANYTHING down. My stomach was revolting against the world, forcing me to throw up even when I had nothing left. It was so awful. The stomach bug is the worst! Oh, and probably needless to say but… pineapple coconut smoothie? Never again.

So, instead of baking a cake, making dinner, and celebrating Michael’s birthday, I couldn’t move from our bed (except for the occasional trip to hang my head over the toilet) and he had to take care of the girls all by himself. HAPPY 33rd BIRTHDAY TO HIM. He sent me this photo of him and the girls as I was upstairs in bed, wishing someone would just put me out of my misery:

On Monday, I woke up feeling like I had been hit by a truck. I was still so messed up from the bug, and although my stomach had calmed, I was still so, so sick. We kept everyone home as a precaution (we were so worried Nora was going to get it AGAIN!).

Tuesday, I went back to work, but only made it half a day before I had to come home and lie down on the couch.

I was finally able to function on Wednesday, but my stomach did not truly get back to normal until YESTERDAY! A whole week of messed up stomach. Not fun at all, and I do not recommend it. WASH YOUR HANDS. Early and often. Avoid the norovirus at all costs.

In addition to the plague, I discovered in the middle of the week that Honda is offering a Presidents’ Day promotional financing rate of 0.9% so we started back up the discussion about buying an Odyssey. And, well, it’s looking like I’m officially going to become a minivan mom, folks—probably later this week. I’ve been negotiating and making my way to all of the local dealerships to have them give us a trade-in offer on my CR-V. One of the dealerships actually let us pick up an Odyssey yesterday and keep it for the remainder of the weekend so we can get a feel for how it will work for our family. We have to take it back tomorrow and I DON’T WANNA! so I’m guess that’s a good sign, right? I just realized we didn’t take any photos of us in or around the test drive van this weekend… we’re no fun! But stay tuned, because hopefully I’ll be posting soon about our very own Odyssey sitting in our very own driveway.

Tessa turned 8 years old on Wednesday. Nora was more excited about Tessa’s birthday than anyone else. I think she thought it meant we’d have cake again. But even when we explained that it’s just a little treat for Tess—a cracker with a glob of peanut butter, sprinkled with a few Cheerios—she was still happy to “celebrate.” She wanted to hold the plate with the treat and the candle for Tessa, and she sang “Happy Birthday” to her. It was cute.

Oh! We DID deck out the girls in their dachshund gear to mark the occasion. And we managed to snag a photo of them with Tessa:

Finally, Friday was Valentine’s Day. We have never been much of a Valentine’s Day couple, we don’t really do a whole lot to celebrate. But it was fun to celebrate with Nora this year. On Thursday night, she and I made valentines for her friends at daycare, and she was completely into it and actually participated. She told me the names to write on them, she signed her name to each of them (I guided her hand), and she counted out all of the ingredients for the baggies. It was adorable.

Friday morning, we surprised her with a Valentine’s Day donut for breakfast, and then she was psyched to go to Mary’s to hand out her valentines and have their little party. She and Vivienne dressed up in hearts and they were generally adorable. We are lucky parents, I’ll tell you that. :)

It is our tradition to get pizza on Valentine’s Day. We didn’t think we were going to do it since I’ve been avoiding dairy. I haven’t had pizza since mid-November. BUT we decided to go ahead and just do it. I had a small slice and OHMYGOD it was so good. Vivienne didn’t seem to suffer any ill effects from it. I am still aiming to wean her off of her Zantac before officially adding dairy back into my diet, but it was so good to have a little pizza. I’ve missed it immensely.

Now, we’ve had a nice, normal weekend. It’s been busy but fun and no one threw up, so that’s always a plus. I’ll leave you with a few pics from this morning:

Have a great week! I’ll try to be back before next weekend. :)