February is a long month

A good friend and I have said for a while now that even though February has the fewest amount of days, it seems like the longest month of the year. It typically includes what seems like a million hours of paperwork and meetings at work, the Super Bowl, the annual meeting at our church, as well as few "holidays" and birthdays. This year, February has been busy and stressful...

Still feeling euphoric over the Packers' Super Bowl win, love was abound at our house for Valentine's Day. Peanut and Swanny had their second annual date at the Daddy-Daughter dance at the YMCA.

This year, instead of just having a cookie and then wanting to leave, Peanut decided to dance. Apparently, she got most of her groove on dancing with friends, but managed to squeeze a few steps in with her dad.

With help from the neighbors, the kids also baked us this lovely Valentine's treat.

Swanny and I enjoyed dinner and a show in Chicago for Valentine's Day.

(By the way, it was AWESOME--I've only now stopped singing the songs all day long in my head!)

This past Saturday we enjoyed visiting with my cousin and her family visiting from out east. We took the opportunity to celebrate a Fairy's 3rd Birthday.

No Fairy party is complete without Pirates though.

That day though, Peanut started feeling unwell near dinner time, which I attributed to too much cake and partying. By 11 pm, the cake and punch were all over her bed. Thus started a 2 1/2 day saga of poor Peanut taking in some water or other fluids, then bringing them back up. She never ran much of a temp, but couldn't keep anything down at all. A phone call to the pediatrician Monday morning yielded typical advice on dealing with a virus (hydrate, hydrate, hydrate, medicine for fever--except she couldn't keep the medicine down). By 9 pm on Monday, the poor kid had puked about 6 or 8 times (water, Sprite, juice, Pedialyte--all of it came back up) and I was really worried about how dehydrated she was. Swanny arrived home and we took her straight to the emergency room.

That's my poor Peanut with her I.V. providing her fluids and anti-nausea medicine. She took 2 full bags of fluid and I spoon fed her a Pedialyte popsicle. The doc then told us she was confirmed to have Influenza type A and B. He then noted he had never seen anyone with both types of flu. Way to go Peanut, anything worth doing has got to be done right, huh?

She was luckily able to come home (there had been talk of admitting her to the hospital) with a prescription for Tamiflu and anti-nausea meds. The doc ordered her home from school for the duration of this week.

All in all it was a pretty scary event. It's awful to see your little ones sick and such a powerless feeling you have when there's nothing you can do to help. While I was sad to see her so sick with flu, I was still grateful it was nothing more serious.

Happy to report she is back to herself again--eating meals (no vomiting since Monday!), playing, and of course fighting with her brother.

So, the long month of February is now drawing to a close. Looking forward to March (and Spring Break), I say here's to good health and a less busy schedule. Oh yeah, and a quick jump in a lake!