Of Cabins, Asthma Attacks, and Christmas Trees

We made a mini trip to our little cabin this weekend.

Heaven knows why we would leave one freezing cold place and go to another freezing cold . . . er place.

Sooooo cold.

BUT, I’ll take your “freezing cold” and give you . . . A SANDWICH!

What does that even mean?? I don’t know. But, for lunch on Saturday I was about to call out, “Who wants peanut butter and jelly and who wants meat and cheese?” Only, instead -- in a fit of shocking inspiration (eh) -- I made the sandwiches, cut them in magical little triangles, threw in some crackers, apples and cheese (along with the real winner – a bottle of Martinelli’s); and called out something about a picnic; and suddenly it was “the best lunch in the WORLD!”

Of course . . . you have to keep expectations pretty low for tricks like that to work.

We mostly stayed holed up. Or, at least, I did. Mike and the older five ventured off to the little indoor pool – even though I warned them that when they came outside all the water on them would immediately freeze to ice and, if they fell, they’d crack into a million pieces. They went anyway.

We made it home in time for Jesse to turn FIVE! And . . . also have a terrible asthma attack. Sad.

I used to think an asthma attack just meant a few moments of struggled breathing. That may be the case for some. I’ve developed some asthma the past two years and, when it hits during a run, I will feel like I am breathing through a straw for about two hours afterwards, but then I get back to normal. But with Jesse, an asthma attack typically means several days of wheezing, labored breathing, and lying on the couch while I use our little pulse oximeter to check his oxygen levels. It occasionally spurs coughing fits that have been violent enough to make him throw up.

It causes me a great deal of stress when he flares up like that. I hate his lungs working so wrong. I hate worrying about the side effects of all the medications we have to use during those times – though I recognize we are lucky to have them . . . and that the other option (not breathing) isn’t really an option at all.

He didn’t eat his birthday dinner, . . . or cake, or ice cream. He did rally, during a better spell right after a breathing treatment, to make gingerbread houses. And, today, he is seeming closer to normal.

In other news: with the help of a ladder, stool, and Abe hanging precariously over our loft railing – we managed to decorate the giant Christmas tree!

And also . . . the ladder itself. (I don’t know why Penny and Jesse thought the ladder was more fun to decorate than the tree itself, but they did.)

The End . . . plus some cell phone pics.