July 16, 2010

Our Super Summer Vacay, Part VII

...AKA "The One Where it becomes clear why it is NEVER a good idea to take your children on a 2+ week Super Summer Vacay"...

Tuesday evening, Sassy began to complain of an earache. This came as no surprise, seeing as she spent an insane amount of time swimming over the past week.

Wednesday morning, we headed out with the troops to the Aurora outlets and did lunch and some shopping. Nana bought Sassy a new backpack and lunchbox for preschool, so she was over the moon.

Wednesday evening, Tyler headed up to Waukegan to sail with some old buddies in their Wednesday night race series. Kelli, Randy, and I met up with Mike and Lana at Molly Malone's for dinner and a few adult beverages while Nana and Uncle Rick held down the fort.



Sassy woke several times in the middle of the night crying about ear pain, and I knew this wasn't headed anywhere good, but I deferred until morning to see what developed.

Thursday, Kelli and I most certainly did not go back and forth about what to do, which did not lead into a rather large argument that was bound to happen when you have 2 families, 2 little kids, and a dog staying under one roof for an extended period of time. Ick.

{Trip falling apart...}

Aunt Kathy took Sassy to see Toy Story 3 and then to her house to spend the night. Ty and I thought we'd spend some one-on-one time with Little A...

...Any guesses where we went?...



...Now?...



That's right... IKEA!

And, there is only one bad thing about a trip to Ikea...

...It's when your trip to Ikea gets cut short by a phone call from Aunt Kathy telling us that we need to come get a sick Sassy and take her in. Fever, ear pain, and the beginnings of UTI symptoms... nothing to mess around with in a kiddo with VUR. Double ick.

So, after a chat with a nurse at Children's Mercy, Tyler headed to the ER with Sassy while I stayed home with Little A. Turns out she had a nasty internal ear infection (I was expecting external) and her urine was clear, thankfully!

Poor Morty didn't have it much better, unfortunately. Thursday marked the day that he finally had his, er, manhood lopped off. Poor Morty...



We had plans to take the girls to Brookfield Zoo Friday, and we really hemmed and hawed about what to do. Sassy was just devastated at the thought of staying home, so we agreed to go save that it would be a short visit and that she'd have to spend the majority of the time in the double stroller and not hiking about in the sweltering heat.

Aunt Kathy, Kelli, and Tucker joined us. We headed straight for lunch and then the new bear exhibit. The polar bears are my absolute favorite animal to see at the zoo, and Hudson did not disappoint, despite the fact that he was out of the water the entire time. Sassy found it positively splendid that Hudson was born the same year as she was.

We also really enjoyed The Living Coast exhibit. Our zoo has no aquarium-like exhibit to speak of, so this was really neat. The girls got a kick out of the way stingrays look to be smiling as they swim by. We also got to see a starfish feed on a fish, which was pretty fascinating. Neat stuff!



Sassy was a trooper, despite the fact she was feeling under the weather. She still enjoyed herself. We even had a good laugh at Auntie Kelli's "wingspan"... HA!



Uncle Mikey gave us money to take the girls out during the week, so he "sponsored" our zoo trip, and each of the girls were allowed to choose a souvenir. Sassy chose a stuffed polar bear and Little A chose a black bear. They both love them and sleep with them every night. Sassy even chose her polar bear, who she quickly named Hudson but changed it to Ariel after meeting my friend R's new baby Ariel, as her travel companion to Cape Cod!



As we were getting ready to leave the zoo, I noticed a the tiny rash that I had seen on Little A's chest earlier and attributed to heat rash had grown exponentially larger. I took one look at it and told Ty that we needed to get her in ASAP because I was convinced she had strep throat. Tyler thought I was crazy, but I just knew.

We took her over to Walgreens to have her seen at their Take Care Clinic before they closed. A quick exam and strep swab later, my fears were confirmed. Little A had strep. Now armed with two sick kids, Saturday morning couldn't come fast enough. Kelli made a frantic call to the pediatrician, rightfully concerned about all these germies Tucker had been exposed to, but they assured her that all should be well. We made a nice dinner for the boys, and they hung out with the kids while she and I met Aunt Kathy and Kait to see Twilight: Eclipse before bed.

We spent one last night sitting out back and having a beer together, and went to sleep. Tyler and I left early- around 4:00 AM and drove all the way home safely and soundly. Until next time, Chicago...

1 sweet tweets:

Lisa said...

Looks like you had a lot of fun.