Can you tell that had a wonderful trip to Milwaukee, in spite of some trying circumstances?

We flew out Thursday morning. I was sure we were on an 8:30 am flight, but I was wrong. We were on the 10:10. Ooops. Somewhere between the airport and the airplane, Noah caught something, and by the time we got to Grandma’s, he was getting feverish.

Thursday was low-key, just hanging out at the house. We hoped to see Dr. Madelaine and her family, but it didn’t quite work out.

That night, Noah was miserable. Fevers, coughing, clinging, whining, and vomiting. Poor little guy.

We called Dr. Madelaine’s charming husband Erik first thing Friday morning to find out how to go about seeing her professionally on zero notice. Lucky for us, that was possible. She wouldn’t even take our insurance.

At that point, Noah was back in his normal, happy-go-lucky mode. He wouldn’t even cough for her! Diagnosis: Looks ok, but might be too early to tell. Recommendation: If Friday night is as bad as Thursday night was, here are some antibiotics. A five day course that will even kill pneumonia, if it turns out to be that. (Foreshadowing?)

Friday night was as bad as Thursday night. We offered to back out on “Babypalooza” brunch Saturday morning, but Patrick & Kirsten felt that as long as we kept Noah away from the newborn, it would be fine.

I am SO glad we went to Babypalooza. We saw lots of friends whom we love and adore. But taking the ergo was a very good idea, since Noah was, in fact, even clingier than at Grandma’s. Unfortunately, as soon as we had him strapped into it, he vomited all over himself and me. We had clean shirts for both of us, but had to borrow Olivia’s lavender butterfly pants for Noah. Thanks, Olivia!

We also visited Aunt Susie on Saturday afternoon. Noah loved all the toys at her house, and had fun watching Kaden and Marika running around. (Well, Kaden running and Marika coloring.)

Noah remained sick and miserable off and on all day and all night. At dinner he ate 6 cheerios and 1 pea, then promptly vomited them back up.

Christmas Eve day was all about getting ready for dinner. Noah met Aunt Anna & Uncle Jason’s dog Clio, who is about 1/3 his size, but much feistier. When Noah was feeling sick and miserable, Clio stood guard. Noah was not allowed to keep testing his newly developing puking skills with exotic solid foods. He did keep trying them on infant tylenol.

Thank god, Noah went to sleep before the guests started arriving.

Christmas Eve Dinner was it’s usual wonderful, overstimulating, chaotic, delicious fun. There were 34 people at 4 tables around the house (35 if we were to count Noah, who was upstairs sleeping): 11 children, 5 first-time guests, 7 Jews (a 15-year low due to sad reasons (deaths in the family) and happy ones (married/adult kids not coming home for winter break anymore)), 20 members of my extended family.

And Christmas Day? Santa was good to us, especially Noah. He still wasn’t feeling his best, although it was day 3 of his antibiotics. We kept to the nursing-only feeding rule (plus water from his sippy cup when he wanted it) and he finally didn’t vomit for the entire day.

BTW, it wasn’t that Noah really lost his appetite. Did I mention that I lost 5 lbs between Thursday and Tuesday? That was a hungry boy with an upset stomach.

I already blogged about the plane trip back. All I have to add to that is we were happy to get back home. (And yes, Jill seems to be getting sick. The jury is still out on me; Noah is still coughing, but otherwise seems better.)