Pathetic Thanksgiving

What is that a picture of? That, my friends, is how the day ended.

It began well enough. I was watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on TV, making rolls for the feast with friends. Bekah didn't love that I was in the kitchen instead of playing with her, so I took lots of breaks and watched some of her shows with her.

Malcom got up (after sleeping off the night shift) and I asked him to take her for a walk. They went, but when they came back, I could hear Bekah's breathing. She was wheezing and it sounded like an asthma attack. We tried a warm drink and beating on her back to loosen up her lungs, things we used to do for me when I had asthma attacks. But nothing worked. We called the on-call doctor and he said she should be seen as soon as possible. Normally, it would mean going into the office, but on a holiday, the only option was the ER.

So, we went to the ER. On Thanksgiving. Bekah hadn't eaten lunch or taken a nap.

She was alternately calm and hysterical. Calm when we were alone, hysterical when any doctor or nurse came near her. We only ended up waiting a little over an hour, thank goodness. It was determined she probably has Bronchitis; not asthma because she's never had a problem before. They gave her a breathing treatment (which took both Malcom and I to hold her still), and a prescription for a liquid steroid and an inhaler.

Off we went, home to get ready for Thanksgiving dinner. We told our friends to start without us because we were already late. We loaded up the rolls and yams (my contributions) and stopped at the pharmacy. Another small miracle: Bekah fell asleep on the way and slept the entire time we waited in the parking lot. Which was almost an hour. It took that long to fill the prescriptions. Yikes.

Okay, off to dinner, arriving TWO hours late. Everyone was happy to see us. We sat Bekah down to give her the necessary drugs. I started with the liquid steroid. She hated the taste of it, but I made her choke it down. After about a minute, she threw up all over herself and Malcom. One friend lent us some clothes, another offered towel after towel to clean it all up. Bekah was stripped and finally settled down.

We ate... kinda depressing for me that the whole focus of this holiday took up maybe 15 minutes for me, trying to negotiate Bekah on my lap, winding down from the anxiety of the day, and being exhausted (because I'm sick too).

Then we had a little down time (maybe 30 minutes) of just chatting while the kids played. Then it was time for everyone to leave. I helped clean up a little, then we loaded up again and headed out. I got to take home all but one portion of the delicious yams--everyone was too full when we arrived to have any. No worries, I love them!

When we got home, we gave Bekah a bath, set up the humidifier, propped up her mattress, read stories, said prayers, then put her to bed two hours later than normal. Malcom when down stairs to get the rest of the stuff out of the car, and that's when the last tragedy of the pathetic day happened. He dropped the pan of yams in the garage. The pan broke. They yams splattered everywhere.

I went downstairs to help him clean up. He was really upset that the one thing I was looking forward to at the end of this crazy day was also ruined. I told him he could make it up to me by going to the store tomorrow to buy more ingredients. But honestly, it was sad. Such beautiful, delicious candied yams all over that disgusting garage floor.

And that is how our day went. I'm definitely still thankful... thankful it wasn't pneumonia or the swine flu, thankful I still have leftover pie and turkey, thankful Bekah went right to sleep without fussing, thankful Malcom doesn't work the rest of the weekend, thankful we're not as sick as some of the other people at the ER were.

And most of all, thankful that this day is over.