January 2012

I know this post has little to do with our high needs baby; however, it was an overwhelming month for our family. On top of our baby being a handful, we had many other challenges and I thought I would share!

We had high hopes for the new year but January was rough on our little family. We are so thankful that things turned out well and we even had many blessings amongst our various trials. It all started with a sore throat. I was thoughtful enough to share this "super" bug with my husband. Clara had it too, but it's hard to say whether she had it first or if we passed it on. Anyhow, this lovely bug afflicted us with extreme sore throats for more than two weeks before it transformed itself into a nasty cold. My husband and I agreed that it was one of the worst sore throats we can remember having. In addition, my poor husband could not stop coughing and even lost his voice...always wonderful when you've just started a new job! Clara was a trooper through all of this and we're convinced that she did so well and recovered so quickly because she is breastfed.

Even the family dog, Riley, was sick. We noticed that he was sappy, not eating, and all-around lethargic. We decided we had better take him to the vet and good thing we did. Riley had doggie Meningitis! Our vet thinks that he got a splinter stuck in the roof of his mouth after chewing on a stick, which introduced bacteria into his spinal cord. Who knew the simple pleasure of your dog chewing on a stick could be so dangerous! I'm happy to report that Riley is doing great after an intensive course of antibiotics.

We were sick, the dog was sick, and our car decided to take a dive. Victoria, our Volkswagen, wouldn't start one afternoon. Besides all the hassle of getting it to our mechanic, it turned out to be a couple of oxygen  sensors...a pretty cheap fix versus the alternative diagnosis.

So now that everyone is on the mend, I can look back on January 2012 as a month of character building. We took some hits financially with our doctor, vet, and car repair bills. I'm glad that we are all feeling well and look forward to things getting back to normal in February!