Life is never a dull moment when you have children, it is always something. They can keep you busy from the moment you wake, right up to the time you go to bed. With 5 children, there are those days or even weeks when you hardly have time to breathe. You know those days?
I just had one of those days, actually it was more of a weekend. Cordelia began dancing competitively this year and this weekend was her first convention / competition. It was something both she and I were looking forward to for months. A nice girl's only weekend away staying at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare.
All four boys would be home with Daddy, a boys weekend for them. It would be only my second time leaving the twins (now 19 months) overnight since they were born. The first was my Hershey's trip to the Smithsonian with Cordelia and Hayden. Daddy and the older two boys are old pros and watching the twins at this point though, so I wasn't overly concerned it would be a big deal.
Friday morning Cordelia woke up with a bad headache, a fever of 101, and her throat sore. We figured the throat was due to nasal drainage but we ran her to the doctor just in case. She was negative for Strep and sent home with the basic instructions for treating a cold. Unfortunately Cordelia has asthma and the drainage was worsening causing her overly sensitive gag reflex to kick in.
I decided to go ahead and drive her to the competition in hopes she would feel better in the morning somehow. Without being overly graphic, I'll just say the drive up there was unpleasant and it was followed by an even more unpleasant evening in the hotel room. I spent most of the night snuggled next to Cordelia on the Hyatt's lovely marble tiled bathroom floor.
Morning check-in for her dance workshops was 7:15am, and Cordelia was still in no condition to dance at that point. I was truly second guessing my decision to even bring her at all. Not to mention that I was feeling a bit annoyed that I had clearly gotten the worst of the two parent positions on a weekend that was suppose to be a bit of a much needed break for me.
However, Cordelia suddenly seem to turn around a bit by 8:45am. Next thing you know she was moving about and gobbling down half the food I had packed for her to snack on between classes and competition events. It's amazing how quickly kids can turn around. She was able to catch the last class of the morning session.
We returned to our room to dress her for competition. It's quite the process between the hair and all that stage make up and I was mid-way through doing it when my phone rang. It was my 15 year old son and he was very shaken up. It took a while to even get out of him what happened. He kept repeating it was his fault and other bits.
He had been watching the twins at my 11 year old son's basketball game. My husband is the coach of the team. At around half time, he let the twins play in the hallway by the gym. They were fascinated with the water fountain and were taking turns running up to hit the button and make the water burst up. J.C. turned his back on them for only a second to glance at the score and turned around to see Declan push Cormac out of the way so he could hit the button. Cormac tumbled into the corner of the wall right there and it slit his forehead open.
J..C. ran and picked up Cormac and there was a pool of blood. His forehead was gushing and J.C. was beyond freaked out by the sight of the whole thing and with guilt that this had happened on his charge. He ran for help holding Cormac close to him and received plenty. Many wonderful parents including a Dr. were there to help get Cormac bandaged up enough to head to the emergency room with Daddy. They even drove J.C. and Declan home.
Several stitches later and clearly my weekend was now looking like the better of the 2 options after all. I should mention Cordelia's group did well in the competition and Cormac is doing just fine. JC felt much less at fault later and I learned not to doubt that it could always be worse. It really is always something, isn't it?