Goodbye January// Go Ravens!

I have several blog posts in my mental queue that may never get written because we've had some very frequent but unwelcome visitors in our house during the month of January: germs.  Nothing knocks you completely out of the orbit of your regular routine like a sick baby or a sick mama, and it seemed like neither of us could really get well last month.  Nora recovered from a nasty cold just in time to travel to Oregon, where she caught the stomach virus that was in heavy rotation out there.  She handled it like a champ but passed it on to me just in time to miss our scheduled flight back home.  Billy came down with it literally minutes after arriving back home.  We were all feeling better in time for Nora to return to day care, where she promptly caught the stomach virus that has been going around our area, which featured the added bonus of a nasty fever!  Then she shared this one with me, as well.  As a result, it feels to me like the picture that best sums up our January is this one:

When you feel miserable and can't afford to venture more than 30 steps from your bathroom, it's easy to get caught up in negative thoughts.  I'm certainly guilty of feeling pretty sorry for myself this month, but in the midst of it all, I never lost sight of two things: 1) My dad felt like this for a good percentage of 5 years, and he got up every day and tried again, and 2) I am fortunate to have an excellent safety net that helps my family can recover quickly and fully.  So now that I can eat again, I'm feeling much more optimistic about the world, so I'd like to take a minute to focus on the positive and say how thankful I am for all of the following:
-a chubby baby whose health and attitude recover quickly
-a husband who does everything he can think of to step up, help out, and support us,
-a mom who happily took Nora off my hands for a whole day, took me to the hospital in the middle of the night, and helped get us on the plane,
-a sister, RN who responds to TMI texts with expert advice and offers of help at all hours of the day,
-the excellent health benefits we have through my husband's employer,
-IV fluids, anti-nausea medication, and kind ED staff members,
-in-laws who offer help and wish us speedy recoveries,
-an understanding professor and fellow-TA,
-day care teachers who helped Nora make a fairly smooth transition in the midst of all of it, and
-everyone else who sent me notes of various kinds to wish me well and see if there was anything they could do.

I can't say it enough: we are the luckiest.  As a small token of thanks, I wanted to share a few pictures I've been taking over the course of this week to catalogue Nora's pre-Super Bowl Ravens spirit.

Here's to a Ravens win tonight and a better February!