Whew!

It's been a whirlwind of life over here.  Since our short trip to Louisiana for our godson's baptism, it's been a little crazy.

Our trip was a brief Friday thru Sunday event.  Friday began with a 4:30am wakeup time, 2 planes, and an arrival in Louisiana in the early afternoon.  We then enjoyed the remainder of that day, all of Saturday, and Sunday morning Mass with treasured friends.  Following Mass was our return trip home, this time 3 planes got us home and Paul, Kassia, and I went straight to bed after we pulled in front of our house at 11pm Sunday night.

Monday morning Paul was back at work - the poor guy had a commuting day and had to leave early in the morning to get to his first appointment, which was 2 hours away from here.  As soon as Kassia and I were up, we headed over to Grandma's house, about 50 minutes away, to pick up Luke, Sophia, and Nadia.

Naturally, they had had a fabulous time at Grandma's, but I had missed them terribly, so I was thankful to hold them and pack them up and get them home with me as soon as I could.  Our trip away from them had enlightened Paul and I to the fact that 4 nights away from them was much too long.  Some people can be away from their kids for that length of time and longer.  We are definitely not those people!  (So much for that future trip to Rome, honey!)  It was a good thing to learn, but not an easy one.  I cried a bit every day we were away from them, just from being so far away from them and missing their hugs and chatter.  (But I will allow that the actual tearing up part of that was likely "helped" by pregnancy hormones.)

Nadia and Luke developed colds while we were gone and, after four days, those viruses found themselves new homes in Kassia and Sophia.  While Nadia and Luke had relatively easy and typical colds, things were different with Kassia and Pia (side note here - isn't it kind of neat that when you say their names together, you've got a constellation?)  Poor Kassia slept got a fever and chills for about 3 days, and spent all of Saturday afternoon, Sunday night, and the majority of Sunday dead-to-the-world asleep.  Sophia's version also really hit her on Saturday, leaving her sleeping and hoarse.

Saturday night, Pia quickly became so uncomfortable that she couldn't sleep longer than 1 hour at a stretch.  Her cough turned into a bark, her breathing seemed strained, and I found myself researching the croup on the internet.  In order to bring her as much comfort as we could, we brought the humidifier up to her room and turned it on high.  I spent the night holding her in my arms in the recliner in her room, waking with her each hour to help her switch positions, give her medicine, wipe her sweaty neck and head, and try to get her to take some water.  When 6:30am rolled around, we were both completely exhausted, but thankful to have gotten through the night without having to visit the emergency room.  Some of Pia's cousins have asthma issues when they get coughs, and nebulizer treatments have become a norm for their families at those times.  This was one concern of ours and we are so very thankful to find that it never developed into that.

Naturally, I stayed home with them on Sunday and Paul took Luke and Nadia to Mass.  We slept and rested the rest of the day.  Sunday night I spent about half the night in my bed, with regular trips to Pia's room to cuddle her when she got a coughing fit, but then I gave up and spent the rest of the night sleeping with her in the recliner.

Monday came and Kassia was well enough to do school and Sophia cough was no longer a strained and raspy bark.  Things were looking up.  Still, I had to cancel both Kassia's and Nadia's Little Flowers club meetings, since it was only one day of improvement.  It was a good thing, because Kassia suddenly lost all energy again and was asleep for the night at 4:45pm.  Both sick girls slept in their own beds (and I was back in mine, for the most part!), but the night was still largely interrupted by coughing fits from both of them.

I'd say it was this past Thursday that I felt that they were finally over the colds and no longer able to spread the germs.  It was a good thing, because the self-imposed quarantine was making me a little stir-crazy, and we were starting to run into some issues coming up with decent meals because we hadn't been to the grocery store in all that time (not that I had much energy to put into cooking anyway!).

I've also been working on some extra work stuff, which will wrap up at the end of next week.  We've got a conference next Thursday and I am one of the "planners," you could say.  It's not a big one, as we are a small company, but it still deserves a lot of careful thought and attention.  I'm operating under the assumption that I will have some follow-up work to do after the conference, but likely not much.  I'm hopeful that work life will get back to normal very quickly.

Two weeks from this weekend, we've got our Annual All Saints-All Souls Party and this year we are keeping the kids with us, instead of having them stay with Grandma so that we can prepare for it.  Previously, because we lived in a much smaller home, we spend a few hours before each party moving furniture out of our living room to make room for all the people.  Hopefully, we won't have to do too much rearranging this year.  And it seems about time that our kids and Grandma get to enjoy the fellowship (and pot-luck!) instead of missing it all.

Finally, we've got a bit of home winterizing to do and have to make some decisions on when to move Pia out of the nursery and how to arrange the big kids' room to accommodate the stuff of 4 kids instead of 3.  :-)  We've got 9 weeks before the due date is here, which really isn't all that far away when you consider the speed of life.

Oh, and baby is doing very well.  All measurements line up with his/her age, the heartbeat is solid and in the normal range, and I've been feeling lots of movement lately.  I've been completely off my medication since early September, which has been very difficult, but it will be worth it of course.  I've also been welcoming a few old friends in the past few weeks: heartburn, sciatica, increased tiredness, and small bladder.  :-)  They're good buddies, though - they never hang around for more than a few months!