Thanksgiving: Slightly Postponed

Thanksgiving is one of my very most favorite holidays, and I was so excited about this one because my parents, brother and sister-in-law were driving across the state of Minnesota and halfway across the state of North Dakota visit our house! I had a grand master plan of being organized, and we’ve all been anxiousy awaiting the holiday for weeks, especially since everyone was even going to be staying at my house. We were so terribly excited.

Late Monday night, The Banana caught a vicious flu bug. She threw up no fewer than nine times on me, her crib, the rocking chair, and many, many sets of pajamas and nearly all the Banana sized blankets that I own (which is A LOT). The throwing up continued many hours into the morning, when my amazing husband ran to the pharmacy for an anti-nausea drug that took care of the situation in a jiffy. On Tuesday Dr. Peds came down wth the flu while he was finishing our major painting job in Mr. Sneaky Pants’ room. (We vowed to have the elephant wallpaper down and the new paint up before Thanksgiving). He didn’t end up throwing up, but he was completely miserable all through the evening and night, and into the next morning.

My master plan of being organized had been abandoned. I was two entire days behind having anything together at all. I was contempletating staying up through the night to finish cleaning, orgainze things, and prepare food. On Wednesday at 5:30 I zipped out the door for church choir rehearsal.

At 6:30 Greg brought the kids to church for Thanksgiving services.

At 7:15, just after the last song the choir sang, my tummy felt very, very strange.

At 7:30 my family ate several pieces of pie in the basement of the church. I declined.

At 8:45 my children were in bed and my husband and I folded nine baskets of laundry that had been washed since last Sunday (products of a baby with the flu). I knew I’d never make it through the night. I was getting sick.

At 9:30 I sent my husband to the grocery store to get the orange I forgot to purchase for the cranberry sald while I finished up the last of the laundry.

At 10:00 I was changing the bedding on the spare bed when I heard a strange sound and walked down the hallway to find Sarah, her bed, the wall, covered in vomit.

At 11:00 I started to vomit.

At 12:00 Mr. Sneaky Pants started to vomit.

Needless to say my husband had a very, very long night, and he was AMAZING. He did an oustanding job taking care of everyone because I couldn’t even get out of bed other than to throw up all night. He went to work the next day and when he came home he even helped out around the house so I could take an extra nap.

It turned out that while all of this trauma was happening, my sister-in-law was dealing with a surprise kidney stone and then lost the crown off of her tooth all in one day! She ended up in the emergency room and at the dentist and she and my brother didn’t come after all.

My parents did come, but decided not to stay with us. We postponed the feast until the Friday, and everyone was feeling better by then. Nothing in the house had been dusted for months. Things were all over the place, and most of my terrific family plans went out the window, but the kids still did have a fun time wearing out grandma and grandpa. Grandpa and Grandma were happy to be sleeping in a warm motel, because even though I turned the heat up 15 degrees and ran both fireplaces the whole time they were visiting, they wore their coats in my house and covered up with blankets.

We enjoyed having them so much, even though we were missing Aunt Jennifer and Uncle Joey.

In this last picture you can see The Banana sitting on a little red chair my mom brought from my elementary school that recently closed. She sat on this little red chair when she was in the primary grades, as did all my aunts, myself, and my brother and my cousins. I am so excited to have it, and my kids LOVE it. There were many flared tempers about whose turn it was to sit on the little red chair. We had to rotate and use a timer.