the texans come to visit

 

 It was supposed to be a houseful.  We were supposed to have twenty-some adults and children climbing our walls, pulling books from our shelves, tugging at the dogs' ears.  

Instead, it was x-rays and urgent care.

The supposed-to's started a little earlier in the week:  Ryan was supposed to travel to Marshall for work, but once Maya's temperatures remained around 103 and she became lethargic, limp in my arms, he bowed out and turned home.  We took her to the doctor's, where she was put into a contraption for an x-ray, which came back showing the possibility of pneumonia.  Our temperatures soared to 105 and, with a heavy heart, we canceled the friends-portion of the birthday party I'd been planning for months.  

And on Saturday, four grandparents, one aunt, and one uncle watched Maya, while my husband took me to urgent care after my throat's soreness kept me awake much of the night.  Sleep was ridiculously fraught the whole week--Maya couldn't sleep well, my temperature kept swinging from frigid to steaming, and some nights, I went downstairs and stared at the walls in restless frustration.  My own diagnosis?  An ear infection and tonsillitis. 

But Chelsea and Cole braved it up from Texas and came into our germ-infested home, as did Maya's grandma and grandpa and grandma and grandpa, and we celebrated in style, if not a bit more quietly.  (In style = me wearing pajamas most of the time.)

She's such a sweetheart.  Antibiotics, bandages, nothing really got her down.

And the traditional smashing of the birthday cake was predictably hilarious.  At first, she'd bring her little paw down, her fingers pinching, and come within centimeters, look at us and grin, as if she were "threatening" to pulverize it.  Something in her knew she wasn't "supposed" to destroy food on her tray.  But we encouraged her--go on, go on!--and she gleefully plunged one finger into the center of the cake.  The rest, as we say, is history, and Cole even set himself up for a fistful of cake and repaid her sloppy love with a strange retelling of one of her birthday books.

I miss them so much already.  I felt that dumb-with-sickness coziness, that squint-eyed happiness having our family in town.  And now, in the aftermath, Maya climbs onto her chair made by her grandma, plays with her plane given by her other grandparents (in celebration of her three plane trips in her first year of life), reads stories, pets her new dog-sized deer (Zephyr has finally calmed and accepted it as a member of the house), and on.  

It was no where near what I had planned in my head:  a hand embroidered felt birthday crown, a sewn bunting banner proclaiming Happy birthday Maya!, a from-scratch cake decorated by me, a poem printed, bags of homemade goodies (these will still be distributed, so I am keeping that glory a secret for a little bit longer), my father was going to sing songs and play the guitar for the littles (oh, he still played).  But, instead, we still got the most perfect of weekends with the most perfect of company.