In Hiding For Over a Month

Oh man, it's been like over a month and it's been madness around here. First of all, I need to talk about Naiya. She turned one on April 16th! I can't believe it's been a whole year already. She is so fun to have in our family. She's so full of life and joy. She finally decided to start crawling about 2 weeks shy of her birthday. Now she's all over the place. Her favorite thing to do is chase Melia around the couch. They are so cute to watch together. They just laugh and squeal and giggle. Melia is really happy to have a playmate that actually plays back now. Naiya has 4 teeth and one more coming in on the top. She's still got her cute curlies on her head, but they are much lighter now. She loves to play with her food and lift big cups up to drink out of. This kid can eat a massive amount for her size! Her favorite part of meal time though is after she gets cleaned up and we move her chair away from the table. She immediately starts rocking and it makes a noise that she finds totally entertaining. She squeals with excitement whenever she sees a dog or a squirrel or when daddy comes home from work. She has decided that diaper changes take too long and is not happy until she escapes. We just love her so much and she is a joy in our lives.

Ok, on to other not so fun things. A few days after Naiya's birthday, we discovered that all of a sudden we have way more cable channels than before. We always just got a couple of the channels that grandma had, but now we have more than we know what to do with. We didn't know how long it would last either, so we spent a week staying up way too late watching cable and eating junk food. Bad idea. The next week Melia, Naiya and I all got sick with head colds. Let me tell you, it is no fun to take care of sick kids. It's really not fun to do it while you're sick too. So that week we spent having no school, no library story time, no play dates--basically cut off from the social world. Mommy no likie being cut off from adult interaction.

So Melia finally felt well enough to go back to school and then she came home with pink eye. This was my first experience with pink eye, so I was kind of freaked out about it. My week was full of impossible tasks--trying to keep Melia from touching her eyes, touching things and touching Naiya. It was full of one million hand washings, countless laundry loads of towels, pillowcases and everything else touched, spraying down everything after the kids went to bed, holding a screaming, flailing child down twice a day to try to put eye drops in her eyes, etc. Then Bo got it. Luckily, he can take care of himself. Melia got better after about a week and we were able to resume normal activities for a couple of days. Oh, by the way, did I mention that I stopped breastfeeding Naiya during all of this so my boobs were super sore for a few days and felt like they were going to pop every time I had to pick Naiya up?

Then Bo and I started a sugar cleanse because I finally wanted to kick my sugar addiction and start a new way of eating that would help us be healthier. Well, I've done other cleanses in the past, but I've never had such a rough detox. My body was getting those toxins out every way possible. My nose was running, I was coughing up stuff, my throat was super sore, etc, etc. So another week of sickness and isolation. I finally started feeling a little better on Mother's Day, so I went to church and it was really good. Melia made me some sweet cards and Bo wrote me the nicest letter and gave me a whole envelope full of coupons for him to do random chores, give massages, etc. I give him a coupon and he will stop what he's doing, no questions asked, and do whatever it says. I've got a good husband. :) And a wonderful family. I am truly blessed.

So anyway, later in the afternoon, I discover that I have pink eye in both eyes. Happy Mother's Day! My case was pretty severe too. Both of my eyes were totally swollen and oozing tons of yellow goop. When I woke up the next morning, my eyes were sealed shut and I had to stumble blindly to the bathroom to try to pry them open. Bo took the next day off work because I still had all of the detox symptoms to deal with plus the pink eye and the last thing we needed was to have Naiya get it or Melia get it again. I was in pretty bad shape, so I went upstairs and just laid in bed all day. I have to say that despite how bad I felt, it was kind of nice to be able to just lay there and take a break because the last time that happened was....well, I can't remember. All you moms out there know what I'm talking about. Anyway, I got through that week and I'm on the mend now. My eyes are all better and I only have a slight sore throat left now. The cool thing is I went to my holistic doctor and she tested all of my organs and systems and she said I tested completely different than I did before. I didn't need any of the supplements and herbs that I needed in the past. All I needed was a little immune support. That was really encouraging news because it shows me that my body is responding well to what I'm doing even though I don't feel great yet. I'm on the right path. Anyway, we went to library day yesterday and school today and I feel like I'm back in the land of the living. I think the isolation for stay at home moms dealing with sickness is almost the hardest part. Must have adult interaction to stay sane!