Cursed Crayon, Sickness & Santa!

Well, the last couple weeks have been a little interesting to say the least. First off, Lauren thought she was having an extremely productive morning last Tuesday. She had cleaned dishes, vacuumed, got laundry going and all before 8 a.m. Then when she went to fold the clothes she had put in the dryer, she was shocked to find that an orange crayon had made it in the wash and melted in the dryer. Of course, it was a load of Blake's laundry that had pretty much every piece of clothing that she wears very often. Here's a pic of the back side of her blanket and a white sweater that were in the wash.
Needless to say, Lauren wasn't about to re-purchase Blake's whole wardrobe, so the research began as to how to possibly get it out. Blake was a pretty good trooper most of the day hanging out, playing quietly and watching movies while Mom tackled this massive chore.
Amazingly enough, 2 cans of WD-40, a bathtub full of boiling water, an old toothbrush, 2 bottles of white vinegar (to get the WD-40 smell out), about 15 scoops of Oxi-Clean and several washes later...
...most of it actually came out!!! Lauren didn't scrub Blake's blanket like she did all of the clothing, so you can kind of see some of the orange tinge left over in the "clean" pic. The only things that got ruined were a set of Halloween jammies (the orange kinda matches anyway) and a white short sleeved t-shirt - not too bad. BUT if it ever happens to you and you can afford to re-purchase the clothing, do it!!! It was quite literally back breaking work scrubbing, boiling water, soaking, washing, re-scrubbing, re-soaking, etc. The easiest part was cleaning the inside of the dryer - the magic eraser was very magical as far as Lauren was concerned that day.

Sunday rolled around and Bob was leaving to travel to Minot, ND again for more work meetings at 4 a.m. Lauren had been up since 2 a.m. puking on and off, but she really didn't think too much of it when he left. By 8 a.m. the constant puking and inability to keep ANYTHING down spurred Lauren to call the doctor to see when she should start getting concerned about dehydration or anything else. The doctor called in a prescription and told Lauren if she started feeling any cramping or contractions to go into the hospital (dehydration can evidently cause pre-term labor). By 10 a.m. Lauren was getting admitted to the hospital. After a few bags of fluids and some anti-nausea meds, she was feeling a little bit better. After being discharged from the hospital, Lauren started to get sick again, but the anti-nausea prescription and a good evening of the hot/cold chills "sweating it out" really seemed to help. A VERY special thank you to Jennifer for giving Lauren a ride to the hospital and watching Blake all day. And another VERY special thank you to a good big brother for flying up to make sure his little sister was alright at home alone with a two year old. It was very nice of him especially since it enabled Bob to be able to take care of business without having to turn around and make the long drive back to Billings. Uncle Chris is a pretty big deal to Blake now, by the way.

Lauren is finally feeling pretty much back to normal today and got to spend the day in Billings with Uncle Chris and little Blake. We even made a special visit to go see Santa.

Blake wouldn't give us a smile while she was on Santa's lap, but she kept talking about him afterwards. In fact, when she saw the picture of her and Santa she said that she liked his boots with the reindeer bells (we've been reading the Polar Express). Well, hope everyone is having a wonderful start to the holiday season!