Quiet on the homefront

Yes - there has been silence in the Messner household of blogging. Why, you ask?

Sickness, travel, presents, tired, cranky kiddos, cranky mommy, looking at lights, hot chocolate, enjoying the season, cleaning and then some more.

We made the trek up to see my family last Saturday and it was already a day late because of trying to make sure the children were well enough to go. We took them to the doctor on Thursday and found out that Baby Boy had his very first ear infection (first for either one of them) and Little Girl was finishing up with Croup. The coughing could be heard round the world and it sounded so painful. LG didn't complain much though and just kept pushing through talking through the cough. BB never showed any signs of illness until we finally got to my family's house and then he felt "warm".

Great.

He already had 2 days of antibiotics in him, so it made no sense to us. By that night he was literally chilling and chattering his teeth because he was so cold from his fever and it was just plain sad. All my aunts and mom came to do the "lip" test on his forehead and kissed him to see what his temp was and the consensus was around 100.3. The girls were close - it was 100.4. I wasn't worried, and then I put him to bed that night. I heard him crying and moaning around 2:00 a.m. and when I went to check on him, the boy was on fire. 105.3 was what the rectal temp was and he felt every bit of that. We gave him tylenol and put him in a warm bath and called the nurse hotline. By the time we were dressed and ready to take him to the ER, his temp had dropped dramatically and he was asleep on my chest. We re-evaluated and decided that if we could keep the fever down with medicine, then there was no need to torture him at the hospital. He slept on my chest all night in my dad's lazyboy recliner and as soon as the meds wore off - he spiked again, but we got him lowered one more time. It was inevitable that we needed to just give it up and go home, and so we did. We missed my immediate family's christmas where we open gifts and were going to go look at lights that night all-together in a 15 passenger van and drink hot cocoa, but what can you do?

We are home now and everyone seems to be mended. Another family member was unexpectedly and randomly also in the hospital and we felt pulled to be with them while we were traveling too. The stars were just not aligning for this holiday trip.

I got a new coffee pot for another piece of random news. It has a touch of red at the top of it, which gives a little color to my colorless kitchen. I wanted a fully red coffee pot, but there was none to be had that were cute AND had good reviews. I need me a cup of coffee that tastes good people! I am drinking a cup of joe now and I believe we did o.k.

I had my girl's night/Christmas party last week and we had a great time. Thanks to all of you girls who made it and participated in the fun!

LG keeps seeing commercials on one of her videos about Operation Christmas Child and wants to participate in that. We may be getting a shoebox today.

She also keeps really pressing me about all the people on the streets with signs. I hesitated the first time, not knowing what to tell her, but it is so hard to say "that person has no home and he is asking for someone to help him." ummmmmm. Next question "why can't we help him?"

Any advice out there from other mommas? What do you say when your kids ask you about the homeless people on the streets? Unless you are an avid person who reaches out to this group of individuals on a regular basis - what do you say? I know my friends in D.C. must encounter lots of questions on a regular basis, so what do you do?

Just curious.

Have a great day. Sorry this post was long, full of NO exciting information and a bit of a snoozer. Next time, people. Next time.