Illinois... and Gabe in Concert

We spent Friday and Saturday traveling to Springfield and Champaign, Illinois. It was a packed 38.5 hours from 11am on Friday when we left Louisville till the time we arrived home at 1:30am on Saturday night (Sunday morning for those of you who are concerned about precision). Gabe was a showing some signs of being a little bit under the weather before we even left, so I packed the Ibuprofen and Olbas Oil.

When we set out, Ladan asked for a cookie randomly. I told him he could probably have one when we got to Illinois. On the way, we stopped at Old McDonald's (that's what Ladan calls it) in Danville, Illinois and got some chicken nuggets for the boys. Danville is just inside the state, so we had just told Ladan we had entered Illinois. When we were pulling out of the parking lot, Ladan said in distress, "Oh, no! We almost forgot to eat a cookie in Illinois!" We had to explain that Illinois is a big place and that we'd be in it for another whole day. Whew! He felt so much better.

The boys didn't sleep at all on the way. Nice. We got to Springfield at about 4:30, settled into our hotel room, and met up with Chet's old youth pastor, Ed Ingram, and his family. We went to dinner at a place called the Pizza Machine. It's something like three stories, but you can see each of the levels from one side of the restaurant. There are all kinds of crazy things to watch and do in the place. They hold birthday parties on the lower level, which you can see from any spot in the place. They make a 40- or 60-inch pizza, put it on a massive pan, and lower it with a chain and pulley system from the ceiling above the third level. Crazy! Needless to say, the boys were a little bit overwhelmed to start. It really wasn't until about 20 minutes before we left that they even broke in and wanted to play with things.

Gabe had a horrible time falling asleep and even woke up in the middle of the night. Not normal for him. We had to have the boys ready by about 7:45 so they could go to Kevin Ingram's soccer game. I was not optimistic that they would do very well. They're used to having 12 hours of sleep at night and at least 2.5 hours of rest/nap time in the afternoon. They had missed their nap on Friday and only had a maximum of 9 hours of sleep that night. And Gabe was definitely getting sick.

The Ingrams kept the boys for about 6 hours, and when we met up with them again, the boys had been really good! They had eaten well, obeyed, and had a great time! The Lord provides just what we need when we need it. Gabe was in pretty bad shape at this point, though. He was hardly talking (a sure sign he's not well), had a fever, and was coughing.

We popped the boys in the car and headed off for Champaign. They each slept for about 45 minutes in the car. Hardly a full nap, but at least enough to hopefully sustain them. We met up with our new friend, Jim, in Champaign. He hopped in our car and showed us all around the city. It was awesome! Pretty much like Columbia, only a little bit more of everything. The campus is a little bit bigger. The downtown area is a little bit bigger. The city is a little bit bigger. However, it pretty much has exactly the same feel to it. I guess the only difference is that there probably weren't nearly as many wooded or road walking/bike trails in Champaign, but they had more large parks than Columbia. Nevertheless, it was just our speed... pretty much everything we love about College Town, USA. We had never been there before, so it was definitely fun to see it.

We ate dinner with Jim and his wife. Throughout dinner, I'm pretty sure that Gabe didn't say even two words and ate only his applesauce. Ladan, on the other hand, was shockingly social. He was talking and playing with the kids in the booth behind us. He laughed and joked with Jim. He even ate all his food, including some appetizers. All of this on very little sleep is really great for him!

After dinner, we got back in the car and headed for home. We stopped for some $2.23 gasoline outside of Indianapolis, but other than that, we just kept moving. We were SO TIRED! The boys slept most of the way, and Chet and I wanted to sleep most of the way. I was trying to stay awake just to keep Chet awake. Let's just say that it was a good thing he was driving, because I would have sent us off the road.

We got home at 1:30, unloaded the van, and got ready for bed. By this time, Gabe's temperature was 103.4. I gave him some Ibuprofen, put some Olbas Oil on his shirt, and Chet turned on the humidifier. He was so happy to be in his own bed. He just quietly smiled when I laid him down and went to sleep immediately. He slept until 1:30 on Sunday afternoon.

When I went in to get him, I opened the door and was surprised to see that it appeared as though he was in concert! Chet hadn't paid too much attention to the setting on the humidifier, but it turns out that it was putting out so much mist that all I could see was Gabe's head popping out over the top of all the fog. It literally looked like those fog machines people use in concerts/plays. It was hilarious! Everything was damp, but I noticed that the curtains had been pretty nicely steamed. Definitely a benefit. (Note to self--never iron curtains again... just turn the humidifier on high output and shut the door!) Gabe felt so much better that he was eating, playing and chatting like normal. We determined that Olbas Oil and the humidifier on "concert setting" can possibly cure most anything!

In reality, Gabe's still got a cough and is pretty hoarse, but he's on the mend. It's actually been kind of nice to have him want me to hold him so much. He's not overly demanding, but he comes up and wants to sit in my lap while I type on the computer... and he doesn't even feel the urge to punch all the keys and wreck what I'm doing. He's just been sitting here pointing at all the letters on the keyboard and whispering what he sees. I can handle that. Last night we were watching baseball, and he was just chillin' on my lap with his little hand on my arm. I'll take it while I can get it. In no time he'll be too big to sit on my lap, and probably even sooner than that, he won't want to.