The birthday revisited

Joel as Santa last year with a friend's child.

Our room at Moondance

I was just retelling the birthday story to my mom and enough time has passed to make it somewhat funny...so I thought it might be time to share it here. Be forewarned: if you cannot stomach stories containing vomiting references, you better stop here. (I promise, it's more comical than wretched)

My birthday was last Friday--December 5th. I turned 48. Far too close to 50, but that's a post for another day.

On Thursday evening and again on Friday, Joel accompanied me to work to play the part of Santa for our annual holiday parties for the families that we serve. I played Mrs. Claus. Nearly every kid in attendance sat on Joel's, er, Santa's lap to have their picture taken. Joel is a fantastic Santa. He was a real trooper handling on those kids.

Following work on Friday, Joel and I went to dinner at Famous Dave's with my kids. It was nice having dinner with my kids...then we headed home.

I was wiped. Joel obviously was too, because I think he was in bed by 10:30. I was a little miffed that he went to bed so early on my birthday, but truth be told, I was exhausted too...and I think I was in bed at 11. At the time I was thinking we were both getting too old to have a late wild night.

Around midnight Joel said he wasn't feeling well...and soon enough I heard some wretched sounds from the bathroom...Santa was puking. About an hour later, I was in the other bathroom doing the same. Thank god, we have two bathrooms...we needed them both.

My first thought was that our dinner at Famous Dave's was making us sick...cause frankly, that was the first thing coming out. (Not recommended) I managed to reach my son, who was not sick. Then I thought it was my birthday lunch. I was a little pissed that I was being hit with food poisoning for the second time in 6 months...and on my birthday no less.

Sometime around 2 in the morning, with Joel and I each in separate bathrooms puking, I heard a LOUD crash. I rushed to Joel's bathroom as quickly as I could and tried to get in. Joel was on the floor in front of the door. Eventually Joel was able to get up...and when I knew he was reasonably ok I returned to what I had been doing...in the other bathroom.

A few hours later I heard Joel moving around...and got up just in time to see him crash to the floor in our first bedroom (we were by that point sleeping in separate beds). I tried to help him up, but couldn't...and he couldn't get up on his own. Finally, I just threw him a pillow and blanket and told him to stay put until we were stronger. We crashed for a few hours.

Eventually Joel managed to get up to the bed...and immediately puked again (thankfully in the Twins pail I had given him hours earlier...yup, we were each puking in his n' hers Twins puckets). I couldn't handle that yet and ran with my pail to the back bathroom. (Essentially we switched beds and bathrooms).

In the morning light it was easy to see the damage that had been done...in Joel's first collapse in the bathroom he had poked his eye with the door jam...not a flexible door jam, but an old, SOLID door jam with no metal tip. We were lucky he didn't rip his eyelid open...but his eye was completely swollen shut and about the size of a golf ball. On the second fall, he skinned up his knee pretty good.

Still too weak to think about going anywhere, we slept most of the day and ate a few crackers and applesauce. About 5 in the evening I took Joel to the ER to have his eye checked out. The doctors were pretty impressed...but no real damage was done (thankfully).

We had planned a number of activities for my birthday, but obviously everything on Saturday was cancelled. Fortunately, we were able to salvage the trip to Red Wing to stay at the Moondance Inn that we had planned for Sunday/Monday. I told Joel both my eyes would have to be swollen shut to miss that. It was a lowkey trip, but there wasn't any better place to recuperate. We lounged around in our jammies and soaked in the hot tub. And Joel pampered us both by booking massages at a local Red Wing spa.

Oh ya, I should add that it probably wasn't food poisoning at all, but a nasty bout of the flu...a whole bunch of folks at my work were sick as well.

So that's the birthday story...who says we're too old for wild nights!