Her body was giving up, but she wasn't!

Bare with me. This is long, but good.

Alexis was so sad to have school come to an end yet excited to celebrate with her friends and teacher. However, at 3:30am Thursday morning she crawled into my bed and she was blazing HOT.

I was so sad for her. Poor Chad had to be the one to tell her she couldn't go to her last day of school. I might have taken it harder than she did thinking about it every second while I was at work.

But when I came home at noon, she was doing alright. Still sick, but the fever was down. I felt so sad for her that she was going to miss everything...so we decided to take her to her awards ceremony at school for 1 hour! Mrs. Stucken was so excited to see her and was sad I didn't send her the full day even with her fever. All the kids received an award. Mrs. Stucken would explain what the award was.

I wondered, "Is this one Alexis? Or that one?" Then she came upon one where she explained

"this award is for someone who is ALWAYS POSITIVE. Specifically, laughing at EVERYTHING and ANYTHING and always smiling."

The kids screamed before she finished, "IT'S ALEXIS!" She laughed and said, "It is."

So cute. I'm glad we didn't miss it. She was so excited for her award. Would you believe she even laughed? Sick and all!

So that schedule I told you about on my previous post didn't happen. We took her to Chad's sister's graduation where I was only going to stay for 15 minutes before I had to leave Chad with the kids to go to my CPR class. Well, Alexis looked like she was going to pass out in the heat. So I took her to my work to sleep in a dental chair till I finished my 2 hour CPR training. (Hmm, brings back memories from my childhood. Only it was a full 2 nights in dental chairs while our house was being tented and my Dad refused to let us sleep at a friends. "It will be fun." HA!) I called my brother-in-law (the director) and told him there was no way she could make it to the dress rehearsal for OCMCO that night. I was bummed.

I kept her home all morning Friday morning. She wasn't even allowed in our courtyard to play. I was saving her energy for her performance in case her fever would come back once she exerted any energy. She was perfect. She even surprised me and cleaned her room for 1 1/2 hours to show me how good she felt. So I felt confident we were in the clear at 3:30 as I got her ready for the OCMCO performance. But that quickly changed.

See the excitement on her face. Now tell me you wouldn't have done what I am going to tell you I did that night.


A migraine came on fast and she was so upset. It hurt her bad and she couldn't hide it. Screaming, whining...it was not good. I gave her IB profin and continued to get her ready. Although, she was supposed to arrive in her dress...I was not about to try that. A few months ago she got migraines for 5 days and when it peaked...she PUKED! She feel asleep on the way to the Orange County Performing Arts center. I thought the IB profin might be kicking in. She woke up when we parked...but started complaining again about her head. She didn't want to walk because of the pain. So I put her in a cheap umbrella stroller I had in the car and wheeled her to Segerstrom Hall. We made it halfway when she mumbled, "MOM, my stomach!" I RAN. Me, the overweight pregnant mom was sprinting pushing her in the umbrella stroller. We were a sight to see. I was trying to find a trash can but it was too late. It came so fast and it was nasty...all over her, the stroller, her shoes...EVERYTHING! She wouldn't walk with it all over her so I undressed the girl down to her panties and a t-shirt and she walked barefoot back to the car. Crying.

It pays to never clean your car. I had two beach towels. I cleaned her off and told her we had to go home. She was devastated. She didn't want to miss her one and only performance that she had been preparing for for the last few months! So I called Chad and decided to take her inside with me and see how the next 3 hours panned out! I wrapped the extra towel around her like a toga and carried her dress. I was grateful I hadn't put her in it. From that point on I stayed at her side and let her jump in the group picture for 3 minutes. Then run through the finale.

This is her in a quick finale run-through an hour before the show. She is in the first row 5th kid from the left.


Finally, the show was about to begin and she had been normal for 2 hours. The migraine was gone. So, I gave the backstage moms my number to text me if anything changed. She sang a few songs of which I didn't tape because I just wanted to enjoy watching her and I had to make sure her facial expressions confirmed she was ok. Then, in the end she sang this one..."Gary Indiana":



Then the finale:


I wasn't watching what I was video taping. And although it looks like we are far away we were close enough to see details about her. Like how her face started turning TOMATO RED half way thought the song. Chad and I looked at each other with wide eyes! I expected pale, not RED. Then she broke form and grabbed her chest for 2 seconds. We were confused. The whole time she was still singing so HARD! And then, she was back to normal. She was staring at Brandon (Brett's brother was directing this song) watching him intently. And when he cut them off on the final note her jaw snapped shut and she didn't budge! Just like he wanted.

After the show I ran up to the kids holding room to get her. She was beaming. I was so proud of her. When she saw Chad waiting for her on the main floor she ran and jumped up into his arms. I felt like I was watching a movie. She couldn't have been more pleased with herself. Nor could we. That picture you saw earlier was on our way out to the car after her performance.

On our way home Alexis says this:

"Mom, guess what I did?"
"What?"
"On that last song, I did a NO BREATHER!"
"Did Brett ask you to do that?"
"Nope, I just did it." She was pretty proud of herself!
Well, that explains the red face!
"And, MOM! Did you see me grab my chest during the song?"
"YES, I did."
"That was because I had to breathe. It hurt."

I got a good laugh out of it. I guess that's what we get for going against our rule of one extra curricular activity at a time. NO BREATHERS= Swim team...NOT singing in OCMCO. (The coaches give out candy if she makes it across the 25 yard pool in practice or meets without breathing. Because breathing costs you time, of course.)

So she mixed the two up and we got a no-breathing, red-faced, chest-grabbing rendition of "California Here I Come!"

And for your entertainment: (even though Alexis isn't in these)
"To Be American" A song my brother-in-law wrote. It's so good.


My 11 year old niece, Katelyn, sang this: (She's the one in the long dress on the right.)