Killer bats and perspective on life

Some days are tough. Last Tuesday was one of those days for me.

Every Tuesday morning I have to be at work at 6:30 for a weekly meeting. This past Tuesday was no different, but getting up earlier makes any day a little tougher.

The Bronchiolotis

A difference for this past Tuesday was that our 7 month old baby girl was sick. She has RSV (the bronchiolitis). (She says to tell you sorry that she has not posted anything recently, but she still doesn’t feel that great.) It was a sleepless and irritable Sunday and Monday. My wife took her to the doctor and he said, “Well, she is bad, but she’s not terrible. When she gets terrible, we have to put her in the hospital.” So we spent Monday morning trying to decide where the line from bad to terrible was and whether or not Grace had crossed it. Monday was a long night.

On Tuesday Grace had another visit to the doctor. The badness was just as bad, but apparently not terrible. A new fear was planted in our brains, however. Dehydration. Grace was not eating much and we were asked to give her plenty of fluids and to try Pediasure. For those of you without kids Pediasure is the kid version of Gatorade. This is easier to do if your baby does not refuse to drink out of a bottle.

The Killer Bat

My boys went to a birthday party after school, so in order to let my wife and Grace rest, I took our 6 year old daughter out for a daddy daughter date. This part of the day was not tough. On the way home to pick up the boys, however, my wife called to tell me that a bat was in our house. If I give to many details of what happened regarding the bat I might be writing about marriage reconciliation next week, so I will keep it simple. Basically I had to stop and buy a bat catching net (its really a net for fishing, but don’t tell my kids) and search the entire house for the killer bat. I never found it.

We felt that the girls bedroom was safe (again, I can’t tell you why it was safe because it might have something to do with my wife hiding in that room for over an hour until I got home with the net), so we decided to have the three older kids sleep there. Everybody was put to bed despite our fear of contracting rabies and the house finally settled down.

The Vomit

I awoke at midnight to the sounds of my wife stomping the house, the door chime ringing constantly indicating that the door was being opened and shut, and my 6 year old crying in my bathroom. When the stomping made its way into our bedroom she informed me that our other daughter had thrown up all over the entire house and that everything was covered in vomit. I went in our bathroom and there she stood just outside the shower wrapped in a towel, trembling, and the shower painted a certain shade of barf.

Thankfully things did settle down after that. Everybody went to sleep. Grace slept well, which had not happened in several nights. No more vomit. My wife and I were both worn out and emotionally exhausted and we wondered if a day could be any worse.

The Perspective

Then Wednesday morning the biggest news story locally was about a traffic accident that had occurred early in the morning shortly after we finished cleaning up most of the vomit. A family traveling in a SUV from Miami to Chicago after a wedding had collided with a semi on the interstate. There were seven passengers in the vehicle. Three died. Two were children and one was the groom.

Suddenly a bad but not terrible baby with RSV, a vomit covered floor, and a bat infested house did not seem so tough.