Oh February, you dirty whore of a month...

The month of February started off deceptively alright. Goose and Pickle got new car seats, which wet my car seat enthusiast panties:



We boarded a plane for a much needed vacation at Joe's grandparents' house. All seemed well. Pickle got her Radiohead on:

Goose settled in for the flight:

The flight went off without a hitch and the young ones tricked everyone into thinking they were superbeings by behaving incredibly well on the plane. We were complimented several times on how well our children behaved by people who obviously don't know that how a kid behaves on the plane is between the kid and God..ain't nothing mama and daddy can do beyond throwing offerings of snacks and distractions at them.

We made it to Papa's no problem, even settled in for a nap after our journey and awoke refreshed and ready to get down to vacationing...and that's when things started going terribly wrong.

Pickle threw away my phone. My new phone. My new Android phone. My really new, like new as in "I had it five days" new Android phone. No biggie. It's just a phone, even if it is my "really new as in 'I had it five days' new Android phone" and I had already broken up with my Blackberry forever and ever and she would never take me back after the things I said about her mother.

We figured it what happened to the phone pretty quickly, too. Except that it wasn't quickly enough and the phone was already on it's way to the dump. Because it was trash day. Because the baby threw it away at night, just before Papa emptied the trash. Because it was trash day the next morning. Bye-bye phone!

Really, though, in the grand scheme of things I was much less bummed about the phone than everyone else seemed to be. Looking back though, it was a mini omen of what was to come.

On Wednesday morning Pickle made the teeniest little cough. We didn't think much of it and went about our business and had a lovely day at the children's museum and being shuttled around, fed and loved by the best hosts in the entire world. Nevermind that Papa's pushing 90, whenever we go out there, they run us all ragged.

Whooo loves picture cutouts?!

Yes, she yells "wheeee" whenever going down a slide

We also didn't worry when Pickle's cough got a bit worse on on Thursday morning. We had an awesome time in the snow:

This is how native Southern Californians make snow men, by the way. Ineptly.

But by Thursday evening, the cough was bad. So we called the doctor in California and got a prescription called in, filled and gave it to Pickle.

Thursday night I awoke and was terrified. Pickle's breathing didn't seem right to me and she now had a fever and was extremely congested. She just didn't seem right. Goose had terrible asthma growing up (not that's she's "grown up" now, but she's mostly "grown out" of her asthma). Goose also had enlarged tonsils and adenoids and had to sleep sitting up. I would wake periodically through the night when she was small to fix her pillows that propped her up. Some nights we would get up and give her a breathing treatment or two and then fill the bathroom with steam and sit in there, propped against the wall, for an hour or so until everything was under control and she could breathe properly again.

Why the hell does that matter? Because I've seen a lot. But I had never seen what I saw with Pickle-her stomach was caved in and she was breathing very shallow and oh so rapidly. When I put my head to her chest it sounded like she had a hummingbird heart, so tiny but beating so fast. I was exhausted and delirious. Was this unusual? I couldn't remember. I didn't seem right, but was it WRONG? I checked in the usual ways to make sure her circulation looked good (it did) and that she had all the signs of being hydrated (she did).  I laid there for a few hours dozing in and out with her in my arms, checking on her over and over.

That morning Joe and I decided that we weren't going to listen to our doctor (who had said, albeit over the phone, to wait until Sunday to bring her in if she didn't seem any better). Pickle seemed to be in good spirits that morning so we called around and found a pediatric urgent care we could take her to, but not until 4:00 p.m. By 3:00 Pickle was getting lethargic and I was getting panicked. We drove to the urgent care so we could be first in line. When we got there they told us that a) they don't open until 6 and we would need an appointment but that b) none of that mattered because they only see kids from their own practice. We were devastated. Sounds drastic, but with the way the baby was acting we were starting to really worry. I quizzed the office workers about urgent cares in the city with pediatricians on staff. They were sorry, but explained there weren't any. I couldn't believe it. It's a big city-Reno. Big enough it seemed. They were kind enough to give us directions and the address to an urgent care that could funnel us across the street to the children's hospital if need be.

We weren't at the urgent care long before they did, in fact, send us to the Children's Hospital. Getting triaged at that hospital was one of the scariest fucking experiences of my entire life. We walked into the triage room, sat down with the triage nurse, who took Pickle's temp and oxygen saturation levels and said a few things to us that I don't remember because, as she was talking to us, she picked up the phone next to her and whispered a few things into it. In the next few seconds there were nurses and orderlies in the room and I just remember being led back, quickly to an emergency room, carrying Pickle in my arms, Joe steadying me as I dissolved into tears and panic. Why do doctors and nurses do shit like whisper and then swoop into action? I know they're *trying* not to make us freak out but by being so calm it's so damn obvious we have every reason in the world to be panicked.

It ended up that Pickle's oxygen was very very low and that she was very ill with a particularly nasty virus which had no *real* treatment.  She spent 5 days at the hospital, with several of those on oxygen. I slept like a soldier on watch in war time. Which is to say, not much. How can you sleep when your baby looks like this?

At the same time, both Joe and Goose got really sick. Like, really sick. And Joe was trying to be such a trooper by helping me - washing my clothes and bringing me supplies at the hospital, driving out to visit everyday, taking care of sick Goose.

There was one point where I wore the same poop and vomit covered clothes for almost 36 hours. The poor baby was just a pile of mucous and mess. Maybe I'll edit this later and give more details about her hospital stay, but right now thinking about it is hard because it was so recently and it makes me cry.

Pickle recovered nicely and was released earlier than her roommate, whose mother's obsession with Jersey Shore nearly put me over the edge and made me contemplate homicide on more than one occassion during our stay. I think you should go to jail for making people watch garbage television against their will.

In the end, we were given the clearance to go home nearly one week after we should have been back in California, but with one caveat - we could not fly. Yep, that's right. We were not allowed to fly home. So we rented a giant tank Chevy Tahoe and made our way across the Sierras, stopping to let the small ones stretch their wings for a couple of hours at a park near Mammoth:

For a week our lives went back to normal - Joe and I went back to work, Pickle was cared for by her awesome nanny Chloe. Goose went back to school. We were recovering. We were so far down in the hole with a lack of sleep and we certainly didn't get the rest we had hoped to get on our vacation (disclaimer: Papa and Virginia were AMAZING, wonderful and the absolutely best ever. We couldn't have done it without them and their love, kindness and generosity were overwhelming). Still, we were on the rebound.

Then Goose caught the flu. And Joe got sick again. School was pressing down on us. It's not something you'll hear me say about us well, really ever, but life was hard. Like for real hard. Like, I feel like this shit is never ever going to end so I am going to drink a bottle of wine, put on Nick Drake albums and cry on the floor like a folorn twenty-something and question every single aspect of my past, present, future and my life in general. Our little ragtag crew that had been through everything together over the years, and which could have taken on any one of the things that happened in the whore month of February, was falling to pieces. We were worn and tired and sick and DONE.

As team captains, Joe and I went into panic mode and spent a long time talking. And planning. And thinking. And praying. (Oh yeah, other disclaimer: we're unabashed liberal Christians (yes, we actually exist). So, if that's a deal breaker for you, Mr. One Person Ever Besides My Husband That Will Read This Blog, too bad. You're entitled to your beliefs and I mine. I won't bash yours or try to change them and I ask the same respect for mine, please.)

We did what any agoraphobe would do and retreated into our little Blair fort and spent a few days recuperating. Physically, yes, but mostly mentally and spiritually. We played with the kids and did family stuff and adult stuff and fun stuff in general. We had a blast. We blew stuff off. It was all worth it. We're tired still, but we survived February and will never look at that month the same again.