Food we ate, Chapter 47.
Have you and/or your family managed to dodge the holiday sicknesses? We have not! I came down with Flu A and I’m still not back to baseline. I ended up passing out and hitting my head on the bathroom counter…so Andrew and I had a very expensive movie night at the ER this week for me to get a CT scan (my parents received a crying phone call from me and came over and watched the kids. You who don’t live by family but have kids, how do you do it?!!).
All was well with my head. The ER doctor said she’s seen people lose a tooth passing out like I did, that would’ve been a big bummer, so grateful that didn’t happen, and obviously grateful to not have a brain bleed. Since then the Flu has been moving through the girls and we had to do Thanksgiving alone, which was so sad. Fortunately, my parents are so GREAT and dropped off donuts and a Thanksgiving meal for us to ease the crappiness and loneliness of the day.
There is no margin for mom to get sick! It was a very stressful week with a lot of me wishing I could do more but being so so sick and a lot of Andrew ready for me to be feeling good again and having no margin to care for me with 3 children and work. I was like, is there a home healthcare option for getting mom some care? For the love! I need some help! I hate when I don’t have the energy to be there in the ways I want to be there for my girls. I don’t rest well.
Once I stopped vomiting, I was able to tolerate smoothies and relied heavily on Uber Eats. Maybe UberEats is the home healthcare for mom lol. Ugh.
Caribbean Way (I’ve had this smoothie at least 3 times over the last week…so sweet and cold and just what I wanted).
Progressed to other meals as able:
Chopped Beef Potato
kolaches + orange juice. OJ sounds so good and I drank an entire container this week.
pizza.
Felt so queasy and thought a solid meal like a burger + fries would help, it did!
Had this on repeat, breakfast sandwich + gatorade.
omelet + potatoes.
Snapped this picture of the girls all at the breakfast table together. Was one of those wonderful moments of, “oooo man I love these kids and this is what I was imagining life with 3 kids would be like.” Since a month before Leah was born, Ella had a shift into a very difficult phase and I’m seeing glimpses of her coming out of it but it’s been newborn-days-with-colicky-baby-Jojo level hard for months.
Yesterday, to address feeling blue, we spent as much time as possible outside. It was a gorgeous day and really helped boost my mood. I can feel like a caged animal stuck inside! Especially if stuck inside with children. I’d watched so much TV and movies over the last week while trying to rest and was so over TV/online shopping.
And that was our week! My next “what we ate” post will be late, as Andrew and I will be popping to LA and Mexico for a few days. I hope you’re ringing in the holiday season with something other than Flu A lol. In the next couple of days I’m looking forward to wrapping up some Christmas shopping and making sure these kids are all healthy. Leah needs ear tubes, so that’s on the agenda too at some point.
Any gifts you are eyeing for yourself? I want a Roomba and there is nothing quite like holiday sickness to make me want to clean. Also, asked Andrew to get me and install pendant lights for Christmas. Hope you have a good one :)
So sorry to hear that you all have been so ill! But thanks for keeping it real with these posts. It’s nice to see “normal” life rather than just the curated feeds posted elsewhere. I hope you feel better soon and get to enjoy your upcoming trip!
I couldn’t do the fakeness, so I’m glad keeping it real continues to resonate with many haha
I have two kids (8 and 4) and we have spent MANY years and various holidays alone due to illnesses (Flu B on Christmas AND New Year’s last year, hand foot and mouth another year, random fever another year). It is TOUGH. Just reaching out to tell you I’ve been there and I understand how you feel!
Thank you Joanna for the encouragement :)
We also spent the holiday at home with a bug! It is so lonely for sure. Hope y’all start feeling better soon & thanks for always keeping it real about parenthood. It is so so so appreciated. Enjoy your trip!!
The bugs are the worstttttttt. Hope y’all are feeling better.
Ugh I am so sorry ya’ll have been sick – that stinks! I never got sick as much as I have since having children lol. It is SO hard to mom when you’re sick. It’s probably the thing that gives me the most anxiety in motherhood, and I talk about it a lot in therapy. We don’t have family super close, so I’ve found some hacks. I stock up on convenience foods for all of us, and I squirrel away little sticker books and things for my toddler. I also have a “sick bin” ready with emesis bags, crackers, electrolyte drinks, meds, etc. (Learned the hard way after 25+ weeks of morning sickness with my second baby while my first was under 2 that it sucks dragging your sick butt to the store with a kid/kids.) Also something I’ve done in times of crisis that is a little $$ but well worth it are IVs! They even have mobile ones that will come to your house but you can get like zofran and other things in there to give you a much needed boost. Our insurance also has a telehealth portal where you can get connected to a doctor by phone in like 15 min, so if I’m ever sick, I do that, so I don’t have to take my kids with me to urgent care. Helps to look into all this before getting sick and just have the info somewhere so you can use when you need it :)
The IV outside of the hospital option is so interesting to me! I need to look into that more seriously. Our ER bill ended up being over a grand (after insurance) so we paid $114 for the IV anyways…something to think about since sometimes an IV is really all an ER can do anyways.
I’m sorry you’ve been so sick! I also ended up in the ER this week with cellulitis (on Tuesday and yep…. Still here!). Since you asked, we have no local family, both of our parents live about two hours away. We are so lucky to have have wonderful friends – our neighbors/dear friends took our 3-year-old from 4 to 7 p.m., then our good friend came over and put him to bed and dozed on the couch until 2 a.m. when the doctors were able to stabilize me and my husband could go home and sleep. In the morning, we paid the teenage daughter (we insisted on) of the aforementioned neighbors to babysit from the time my husband came back to the hospital til my MIL could get there (so about two hours). Its like they say – it truly, truly takes a village and asking for help when you need it.
YES. It takes a village. I need to surrender to that. I hope you are doing better cellulitis-wise!