Mother's Day: Good News and Bad News

Lately Ramona has been identifying both the positive and negative aspects of our family's experiences and describing them as "the good news" and "the bad news." Here are both the good and bad news of the recent events surrounding Mother's Day 2014:

Good News: The week before Mother's Day, Ramona's preschool hosted a Moms and Muffins brunch. I got to spend some special time with my big girl, see her in action as a little waitress, and share lemonade, muffins, and chocolate strawberries with her.

Bad News: It was probably around this time that Ramona and I were exposed to a severe stomach virus that recently caused over 50 students to be sent home from the neighborhood elementary school in ONE day.

Good News: Miss Jamie helped the kids fill out questionnaires about their moms. Some of the responses were hilarious.

Bad News: Each questionnaire was read out loud to the class after brunch.

Good News: Forest's buddy Scott invited us to his wedding, scheduled the Saturday before Mother's Day at Fourth Presbyterian in Chicago.

Bad News: On Friday, while we were on the road to Illinois, Ramona started throwing up in the car (every hour for half of the trip) and I got hit with nausea and body aches. We showed up at Paca's house as some very weary travelers.

Good News: I felt a lot better the next morning, so we left Ramona and Mika with Paca as planned, and dropped the baby off with Carol before heading up to Chicago.
Bad News: My stomach did NOT like the lunch we picked up on the way. And it retaliated, big time.

Good News: We still made it to both the wedding ceremony and reception. Forest got to see lots of old friends.
Bad News: I could barely nibble on my food at the dinner table and was sure everyone thought I had an eating disorder (Especially coupled with comments like: "Wow, you look great after just having a baby!"--even if they were obligatory)

Good News: We snapped some pretty good pictures.
Bad News: It was hard for me to smile--I not only had angry stomach issues but engorgement issues from surplus breastmilk. We were one of the first couples to leave the party.

Bad News: My Mother's Day began with me throwing up in the hotel toilet.

Good News: Ramona and Mika had made me giant Mother's Day cards to show me when we got back to Paca's house

Bad News: I missed church.

Good News: Everyone else made it to church, and afterward Paula got to meet Great-Grandma Rosanne for the first time.

Bad News: Back at Paca's house, Ramona cried because I was too sick to walk down to the river with her.

Good News: Forest went with her, and she brought me back a pretty little sprig of wildflowers.

Bad News: Mika slept through dinner.

Good News: I actually had a little bit of an appetite for dinner! And we enjoyed the company of Gavin, Kristen, Cheryl, and Dick. Once Mika woke up, she ate her share and helped her sisters provide the post-dinner entertainment.

 

 

Good News: The next day we got to visit my parents before hitting the road back to Colorado. Baachan of course had lots of goodies to give to the girls . . .

 

 . . . including these adorable bear-face cookies.

 Bad News: We could only stay for an hour.

Good News: The car ride home was puke- and diarrhea-free.
Bad News: The days following were anything but puke- and diarrhea-free. In addition to cleaning up the aforementioned substances, I have also been canceling/rescheduling an entire week's worth of appointments, tackling larger-than-normal mountains of laundry, and battling stronger-than-normal feelings of discouragement and self-pity.
Good News: Morale is back up. Let the good news (and healthy bowels) prevail!