My baby is so sick. And this picture isn't of her sick, it's of her sweet and healthy. I just needed to see a picture of her looking like this, so I thought I'd share it with you, too. She has not stopped the vomiting and other gross stuff for four days, and it has me so freaked out. She has lost over a pound since last week. We have fought so hard for every ounce on that little body of hers, so to know that eighteen ounces are gone angers me terribly. I called the pediatrician today to find out if whatever is going around is lasting this long in little ones and she said, "I don't understand what you are asking me." Really? Perhaps I phrased it in too challenging a fashion...

My other kids have never had a stomach virus that lasted this long, especially the vomiting. Usually it's like twenty-four hours of hell and then it's over. Not this one. She does well for about twenty hours, and then explodes at both ends. It's terrifying me. I took her to the peds yesterday and they said if she is not better by Saturday then we should be worried. It's far from Saturday, and she actually looks a little perkier today, even enjoyed browsing through Target looking at the Christmas lights, so that I take as a good sign. She's also been awake more today than yesterday and hasn't been crying the whole time. Also a good sign. My neuroses are screaming today, so I'm sorry for this quivering nonsense. I am just scared that she won't be able to fight this.

How wrong is that? After everything she's fought through and all the odds she's beaten, I'm afraid that this virus will be too much for her? I need to remember that she is Elizabeth Josephine, a force with which all should reckon.

Deep breath. Let it go. She will be fine.

Other sweetness abounds in my house...Erin is singing in the children's choir at church and is learning "Do You Hear What I Hear" to sing at Christmas Eve mass. Erin learns best by teaching, so she is teaching Meghan with relentless fervor, how to sing this sweet carol, too. Well, I've been listening to the All Christmas All the Time radio station in my car, because it's my car and I'll do what I wanna' do. (That's for Pete who has a ban on Christmas music in the house until after Thanksgiving.) "Do You Hear What I Hear" just came on the radio, and Meghan sang every word right along with Vanessa Williams, and I drove along with tears in my eyes...it was the most beautiful version of that song I've ever heard.

I am embracing every moment I can with my kids...as much as possible. The emotion of the season is brimming within me, and I want to have as many happy memories as possible. So I'm trying to keep my perspective, not live in "last year" mode so much, and just enjoy these precious times. Lizzy will be one year in one month. And her first year will be behind her. Staggering. Meghan is blossoming like a crazy weed, right before my eyes. And Erin is becoming a young girl with every day that goes by, and I love seeing how this school year is already shaping her in positive ways. She was commended by her teacher for demonstrating "Tolerance" last week, one of many positive virtues they teach. So what if she's intolerant here? She's wowing them at school.

So I'm off to continue the Great Disinfect of '08 and continue to pray that my baby will snap out of this funk. Everything else is fine and dandy...and we saw our first snowflakes today. That was awesome!