We All Fall Down

This past weekend, Matt headed down to the swamp to take finals, load up on text books and schmooze with professors.

Three semesters down, one more to go. 

Despite being one parent down, Melinda planned to continue on with the holiday merry-making. After all, there are only so many weekends in December to fit in things like the National Christmas Tree, ice sculptures at National Harbor, musical performances at the National Cathedral... but alas, it was not to be...

Really, she should have known better. Every time Matt leaves town, his girls fall apart. The first time he left for his MBA, he was not on the airplane 20 minutes when Melinda was put on bed rest with pregnancy complications. Last time he left, both girls got hand, foot and mouth disease. So, it was only to be expected that team Jensen was in for a rough few days.

Adelaide kicked things off with a horrible asthma attack. It happened literally minutes after her normal morning nebulizer routine. So, her doctor had to up her dosage and give her some additional, temporary medication on top of that to help decrease the inflammation in her airways. Two days later, she got sick again. At first we thought it was too much medicine, but it looks like it was just a virus. Poor kid. Her asthma medicine makes her nose drip. At one point, she was so tired of it she began pulling at her nose and telling it forcefully, "You're all done!"

This is Adelaide's "sad" face.

Of course, Eleanor didn't want to be left out. She came down with a high fever and ear infection. Then, to keep things interesting, she also added Adelaide's virus on top, throwing up her antibiotics all over Mom. 

Do all pediatrician's offices have these? 

It seems like it's a requirement.

Poor girls, life is just so rough when Daddy isn't around. But, Mom kept the medication flowing, read them stacks of books and when they were just too tired for anything else - put the Elmo videos on a loop.

When Mom was doing the dishes and couldn't 

hold her, Eleanor crawled to Adelaide and laid across 

her lap. Adelaide patted her head, told her she was

going to get better soon, and held her until Mom

had free hands again.

By Sunday, the girls were feeling mostly better (highly medicated), so Melinda managed to squeeze in one holiday-related activity. Christmas cookies to celebrate Dad's return!

Adelaide supervised the mixing...

...and added all the red hots.

Eleanor chewed on cookie cookers.

At last, Daddy is back! Eleanor didn't 

want to let go of him for the rest of the night.

Now, you may be reading this and thinking...dang, poor Melinda. Stuck home with sick kids all weekend while Matt is galavanting around the Florida sunshine. But, it's okay. Melinda won a box of Godiva chocolates from an online holiday promotion this week. So, she was not without her favorite comfort food.

Got Hazelnut Pralines? 

Everything is going to be just fine...