2 year birthday and Death Fever

Only 16 days late, here are pics of Rylan's 2nd bday. We had it at a park, on what has turned out to be the coldest day of the fall, so far. You just can't plan these things. But, the skies were sunny and the kids were happy, so we all bundled up and had a good time.

I guess the word got out that Rylan enjoys Toy Story. Alot. Like, when he gets up in the morning, he yells "BUZZ!!!" instead of "mama!" these days. He received Toy story pajamas, bowling set, books, Buzz Lightyear action figure, Memory game, coloring book and many many many other Toy Story things. And he loves them all. "Buzz and Woods" are good friends. He also got a "doggy bank" that barks when you put money in and some cool new clothes.

Seriously, we only needed to provide Rylan with leaves and sticks and he would have been happy.

This is Chloe, my old roommate, Alicia's daughter. She kept telling Rylan "open the bag with the dinosaur, there is a toy in there." Incidently, it was holding Chloe as a newborn that inspired the "Rob, its time to have a baby" talk 2 years and 9 months ago.

Rylan's awesome Elmo cake. Rylan loves Elmo. He calls this red furry friend Elmo, but he also calls Nemo "Elmo", so I didn't know which one he loved more, so I gambled and got the real Elmo. He liked it.

Check out the spread of presents!

The fam minus Max. He was too cozy being cuddled by grandparents to take part in the pic. Who can blame him?

Thanks to all that came and helped us celebrate Rylan's birthday.

Now for the not fun, after party. I have had joint pain since Max's birth, but it has been blamed on water weight that I gained in pregnancy. A week before Rylan's birthday, my friend noticed I was wincing as I went down the steps outside my house, and the day of his birthday I commented that maybe I needed to get myself checked out, maybe I had some kind of arthritis. Well, on November 17th I went to bed with really bad pain that had me limping. I woke up at 11pm and could not walk and had a 102.6 fever. Kind of scary. And no husband wants his wife to wake him from a stone dead sleep saying "I think something is wrong with me." But, that's what I did. And so began DEATH FEVER 2010. About 3 times a day I would spike a high temp and not be able to walk, then as the advil or tylenol kicked in, I'd be able to walk and stop the fever shakes. Then my eyes turned red. I could have been in the move Twilight at this point. Then my teeth started hurting when I chewed. Yes, this is the weirdest illness I've had to date.

It turns out, I've been bit by a nasty tick. And that little sucker (pun intended) was a real pisser, excuse my French. I say this, because 2 weeks later and I still have only slightly conclusive tests as to what was wrong with me. They have narrowed it down to that I either have Lymes Disease or Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. And the original symptoms (slight joint pain, low grade fever) was attributed to being very pregnant in the hottest summer of my life and then post partum.

So, Rob took a couple days off to care for me, then drove me to Mountain Home to stay with my mom and dad. They have magic Death Fever healing properties and my kids adore them and I think they might like them too. The knee and feet pain and red eyes were caused by lots of inflammation that is mostly under control now. I am putting steroid drops in my eyes 8 times a day and dilating them every night (hello, bad vision) trying to stop any damage being done. I am on killer antibiotics that did a number on my stomach. But, I'm alive and I can walk and carry my sons and see pretty well, which is something that one takes for granted before a tick bites them in the butt.

I was just about to do a blog post about surviving life with a 2 year old and a newborn when I got knocked on my bootie by Death Fever. Life with Death Fever and a newborn and a 2 year old is way harder. After I get over it, we'll get right on that other blog post.