Under Siege

The O'Brien household has been under siege for just over a week. The culprit? A nasty gastro virus that has been hitting up children all across the city. A few weeks ago, the Topolski clan had to undergo the same battle.
Pat and I thought we escaped, unscathed, since we felt fine until the weekend. But, lo and behold, Sunday afternoon brought the wrath to us, just as the children were getting back to normal...
...well, almost normal. Last night, poor Avery woke up screaming, complaining about some eye pain. We noticed his eyes were pink earlier in the day and we've seen enough pink eye to know what was a brew'n. We gave him drops, which normally have his eyes back to normal in a day. However, this was no ordinary case of pink eye. He woke up in the morning, again screaming about eye pain and this time his eye was swollen and couldn't open. Straight to emerg the O'Brien's went. Thank goodness it's just up the street. It turns out he just caught a really nasty case of pink eye. One that is highly contagious. One that he passed on to his mother. Oh yeah - we are a hideous bunch right now. Avery was a star at the hospital. Even though he was scared, he let the doctor examine him without fussing. This was no easy feat, since the exam included having iodine drops to check for scratching on his cornea. We have some new drops (for both of us) and while I still look quite scary, Avery's eyes are looking much better.



You may be wondering what we have been doing to keep busy while on lock down for 72 hours. Well, if you are Elliott you try as hard as you can to climb the stairs. It is his favourite thing to do. And he is soooo good at it, climbing almost as quickly as Avery. And if you think that having a bout of gastro issues would interfere with Elliott eating, you'd be dead wrong. Through this whole ordeal, E kept up with his insane levels of consumption. Yet, still, he looks as if he's not gained any weight. His exam isn't until March 28th, so we have to wait until the end of the month to find out that magic number.



The other thing we like to do is put our ill children to work. Child labourers don't get sick days, come on. We woke up Sunday morning to a beautiful white blanket of snow. It was a shock to us since it had been raining all day Saturday. Avery wanted to go outside right away to shovel. He loves it... so how could we stand in his way. In fact, he begged to go outside and shovel today, even though there hadn't been any new snowfall. So, we went in the backyard and shoveled random piles of snow. This was followed by a session of bubble blowing on our porch. I can only imagine what the internal dialogue of my neighbor was when he peaked out of his back door and saw us. It made Avery incredibly happy though, which isn't always an easy feat with a sick child.



Avery will be spending tomorrow at home with me again; he is still too contagious to go back to daycare. So, I am going to take Avery to see his first movie in the theatre - Gnomeo and Juliette. I think we'll make a stop at the Bulk Barn beforehand for some treats. I figure we have to make his first movie experience memorable!
Lastly, I have to mention that my little baby Elliott is turning one in a mere ten days. I really can not believe it. I thoroughly enjoyed our year together and while he still seems like such a baby to me, it's amazing to see how far he's come from that delicate little infant who weighed in under 7lbs. I can not wait to see what this next year has in store for him. If it's anything similar to Avery's second year in life, it will be nothing short of amazing.