In sickness and in health (I'm using this title again...it fits...)

Happy Anniversary to my loving husband!

It is not in fact the anniversary of the chilly, but lovely December day Matt and I got hitched and started this crazy family. We completely missed that anniversary this year in spectacular fashion.

From the end of October to the beginning of December, the kiddos were sick. Seriously sick for most of it. Illnesses with olde tyme names like "croup" (LG) and scary initials like RSV (G2). The timeline is typical--many visits to the doctor, trips to the pharmacy, long phone calls with nurses, the whole shebang. No amount of lysol wipes or refills on the humidifier were going to make any of it go away any faster.

It all came to a head on Thanksgiving. We had already cancelled our bi-annual trip to Hanover due to the illness that had taken over the house, but Thanksgiving day brought new scary symptoms early in the morning. Thankfully, our doctor was open on the holiday. So, after a short examination of both little ones, LG was sent home with a prescription for antibiotics for her very first ear infection and G2 was rushed off to the emergency room for more intensive testing. I took LG home as she was the more emotionally needy at the time, and Matt took G2 to the ER with the plan that I would meet them if the need arose.

Though she seemed to be in dire straits all morning,
the second I got her home and put on the Thanksgiving parade,
she started dancing around like a marching band majorette.
Gah. 

An incredibly long story short, we spent the next two nights in the hospital with G2 as he received constant monitoring, oxygen, and albuterol treatments. The staff at the hospital was very nice, and thanks to my fantastic mother, Matt and I did manage to have some turkey and stuffing in G2's hospital room.

Side note: There was one very strange respiratory tech that visited a few times one night who insisted that his four-month-old son--who was conceived under very strange circumstances (of which I know too much)--was already crawling. After I expressed horror (because who would want a baby to start crawling and getting into stuff that early?), he insisted this was all part of a grand design on his part through the implementation of "baby exercises." In my sleep deprived position with a very sick, very sad baby sleeping on me, I could only muster "Oh? Baby exercises, you say?" If I had been a little more with it, I could have learned his secrets and passed them along to those with young children who wish that their offspring could possess almost superhuman capabilities. Alas.

Happy Thanksgiving from Virtua Voorhees Pediatric Wing! 

To say we were exhausted and overwhelmed when we left the hospital would have been an understatement. We picked LG up from my parents where she had been having an extended sleepover complete with lots of movies, snuggles, treats and amoxicillin, and we headed home.

A few days later, my wonderful mother-in-law offered to come and stay a few days to take care of the sickies so we could both get back into the groove of work. That Tuesday, December 3, as I was rushing around to get LG ready to go back to school and make sure all the pieces were in place to make sure G2 wasn't too much trouble, I stopped in my tracks. You see, my MIL had just wished me a happy anniversary. I called Matt into the kitchen, and soon it was confirmed that, yes, we had completely forgotten our wedding anniversary. My actual reaction (which was identical to Matt's) is not fit to print. It's not even that we usually make a huge deal. Sometimes we go out to dinner, sometimes we don't. Sometimes we exchange gifts, and sometimes we don't.  Sometimes Matt remembers and sometimes I remember, but never had we both completely forgotten. Eights years and two sick kids later, we missed it.

So that brings me back to today. Everyone is mildly healthy (knock on wood... does that still work digitally?) and we're celebrating a different anniversary. Ten years ago today, Matthew asked me to marry him in a dingy little Chinese buffet. The story of the proposal is great (next time you see us, ask), but what has happened since then has been even better. Insert all the cliches about Matt being my best friend, the love of my life, the best husband and father. They're all true. Completely true.

To put it simply (as I do most of the time), he's awesome, and I love him.

10 years ago today, a simple question written in a fortune cookie led to all this.

And I couldn't be happier.