The Carman Crew: A Wreck, the ER, and the Flu

First of all, it sounds worse than it was. Well, maybe the flu part was as bad as it sounds. But that title describes our last few weeks!

Last week (from April 5, when I started this), on my way to teach school, I was sitting at a light, minding my own business ... when ... CRASH!!! A guy in a huge SUV slammed into the back of us. It scared Caleb and gave me a pretty good case of whiplash. The guy got out of his car and gave two very important pieces of information: 1) When I asked what happened, and how he could have hit us that hard at a light (from a Wal Mart parking lot in fact), he said, "I took my eye off the ball." Okay. 2) He kept repeating, "Gosh, I can't believe it didn't do more damage to your car! I hit you hard!" To which I also say, okay ...

So, to shorten the story as much as I can, I drove to the church to teach, and everyone there was convinced that I needed to go to the ER (being pregnant). I was more convinced that Caleb needed to be checked out being so young. Both his pediatrician and my OB said, "Yes, go to the ER," when I called to see if they agreed with me that the ER was overkill. So we went - got checked out - and were basically fine. The doctor said I had whiplash (which I knew - I hurt!), gave me a neckbrace (looked dorky but it helped), gave me muscle relaxers (which I of course didn't take, considering the baby), and off we went home. Fast forward to Wednesday, when Caleb starts throwing up all over everything in sight. I'm sure we picked up the stomach bug at the ER.

Thursday Caleb spent all day on the couch recouperating. Friday my family drove in to visit, and we all went to dinner and had an awesome time. Then Friday night, after 48 hours of no puking, Caleb woke up throwing up at 1 am. 2 am. 3 am. By this time Rick was so sick, I was yelling "HELP!" and Rick couldn't even stand up to come help me. So ... finally at 3, we got some water to stay down in Caleb, I put him back down (after changing the sheets for the 3rd time in 2 hours), I showered, I got in bed ... and I got sick. By 5 am I was praying, "Lord, what are we going to do? Everyone has the flu, and Rick and I are not even well enough to get up and care for Caleb. PLEASE, provide something to help us! We can't call for help, we're contagious!" I called my family Saturday morning with the sad news that they should avoid us at all cost and head home immediately.

Ok, the great part of this story is that God provided at all times someone well enough to take care of Caleb. Rick was miraculously functional by 7 when Caleb woke up. Caleb slept from 3-7, which was amazing, because I'm not sure what would have happened if he had been sick again. I spent all Saturday completely unable to stand except to occasionally race to the bathroom. By Sunday morning when Rick had to go preach, I was well enough to take care of the little guy. At 5 am when I was praying, I really did not see a way for life to go on! But God provided, and we're all well. Now we just have to go to the chiropractor a time or two to work out the whiplash kinks.

I worked on an online project to score standardized math tests the week after all of this, so our blog is SO behind. I'm going to try to catch up now that the craziness (hopefully) is over!

So is anyone else having a hard time getting their toddler to move to the "big bath"? Maybe we should have ditched the duck a long time ago, but Caleb is outgrowing it and TERRIFIED of the big bath. Solutions? Suggestions? I've tried everything I can think of.

Lovin' the ducky!

On April 7th, we went to the doctor to get a sonogram to see if we needed to pull out Caleb's old baby clothes or buy an entire new closet full of pink! Just kidding. These pictures are from the Brownlees who babysat Caleb while we went to the doctor. (Thank you, Kim!!) As for boy or girl ... that will be my next post!

I want to touch the chicken, I want to touch the chicken ...