A case of bad timing...

My mom taught me about Murphy's Law at a young age. Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. Occasionally, I find this to be true. My optimistic side doesn't let me think about it very often, but this weekend was one of those times.

It just so happens that this past weekend was Rick's 30th birthday. It also happens to have been the observed drinking holiday for St. Patrick's day, and the weekend we decided to celebrate both with a rather large party at our house involving 30 of our closest friends that were still sober enough to stumble to our house -- some of them started drinking at 9 am Saturday morning.

In preparation for the party, we had been hoping to clean the house, grocery shop, beer shop, and finish all of our chores. We also made arrangements to ship Ada to grandma and grandpa's house for an overnight. All was going well until Rick had a major deadline come up at work which made him unavailable most of the week. Then my mom came into town for Oprah on Tuesday which took a morning of cleaning from me, but she cleaned the stove and microwave while she was here so that was a bonus. Then my dad came into town Friday and took us to dinner so that stole a night of cleaning time from us. Then the bomb dropped. Ada got sick.

Friday night, after 3 or 4 glasses of wine each, we got home to a fussy mess of a munchkin. Ada was up on and off all night with a nasty cough, throwing up for the duration. We tried to tuck her between us for a family bed arrangement but she spewed hot dog remains on our sheets within 5 minutes of lying down and was thereby banished from our room. After taking turns going in and out, up and down, I finally made a bed on her floor and set up camp for the night. That was great until she took my pillow, woke me up every hour or so to spit up on my blanket, and stuck her extremities in between my ribs at every available opportunity. Needless to say, I was a cranky come Saturday morning, and Rick wasn't much better.

Luckily, we had grandparents coming to rescue us around 11. We did our best to get 4 loads of laundry done in the morning. Rick quickly made grocery lists and cleaned. I hustled around to do what I could with hacking Ada in tow. All around, a very bad scene. Once Ada left, we tried to take a nap that was shortened by a phone call from the Doctoress to say that if Ada had a fever we needed to bring her in as she could have pneumonia. In my hazy stupor, I at least had the foresight to have Rick pass his insurance card to his parents in case she'd need to go to the clinic back home. Of course she spiked a fever and the card did indeed come in handy. The Doctoress in Sycamore diagnosed her with an ear infection and soon her life would improve with the help of some antibiotics.

Meanwhile, the party must go on.

With Ada settled in good hands with good drugs, we set off to finish cooking, cleaning, and shopping to prep for our soiree. We finished the food at 7:30 with the help of a few guests and magically made the house look presentable to the untrained eye.

Since Ada was under the weather and we knew we'd have to drive over an hour each way to retriever her on Sunday, Rick and I opted for a lower key evening of drinking instead of all out partying.

Sunday morning we got to sleep in... until 7, 8, or 9 -- depending on when you count it since Rick got up 3 times and I made it until 9 when, surprise, my cell phone rang. We tried to take Rick's brother to brunch, but failed when the line to the diner was out the door. We opted for Einstein's bagels instead and witnessed a jammed packed parking lot that made things interesting. Once on the road, we stopped at a gaming store to pick up a few things off Rick's wish list for his birthday. Then back on the road, and back to discomfort for me as my herniated discs in my neck were not up for a drive -- having been mashed into Ada's floor two nights prior, my body wasn't up for anything. And the whole standing up all day cleaning didn't help much.

Once in Rockford to make the baby trade off, we stopped for lunch. Ada was a HOT mess as she was in desperate need of a nap. Hungry. Fussy. In pain. And all out ticked off that we ditched her in her time of need. I inhaled my meal while Rick played with her outside. Then vice versa. Then a long drive home where Rick drove and Ada and I napped the whole way. Finally, Bliss.

Poor Rick spent his first night of being 30 on the couch so that Ada could take his side of the bed and he could be in decent shape for work as he's still on deadline until Friday.

And so it goes.

Moral of the story: Sacrifice takes on a whole new meaning when you have kids. Beware.