At my friends open house that was being held on my birthday. Advertisements promised music, drinks and some fine art in the presence of those who made it at a beautiful little tattoo parlor downtown.
Instead I went to my dads for dinner since he made the effort to call.
It didn’t exactly work out well for me though.He invited a few other people, his friend that used to rent a room from him and his girlfriend and her three kids, the youngest of which had a persistent cough that his mother brushed off as allergies took a keen interest in my child coughing directly in her face as he showed her his current gaming obsession involving a tiny chibi SlenderMan.
We stayed long enough to enjoy dinner of roasted meats. My dad’s wife regifted me a moon nightlight I gave her a year ago along with a floating cube picture frame, her son also suprised me with a nice coffee cup that says Catfineited, fueled by cats and coffee. I in turn had gifted my dad a few souvenirs from Spokane since his birthday was a few days previous mine.
My kid started panicking though when flies started buzzing around the living room from the open doors,Bad enough that I thought it time to make our way home. My dad made the comment that I was never like that and I had to refrain from saying he wouldn’t know because he wasn’t around then and I in fact remember a few of my unreasonable tantrums from back in the day.
Within a day my kid was throwing up with a fever of 102. I messaged my dad to see if anyone else got sick but didn’t get a response or even concern about his grand child. Two days if vomit, four days of fever. And I’m still dealing with sleepless nights 12 days later as her sleep schedule had truly gotten knocked out of whack.
I’m a bit regretful I didn’t choose the art show as it felt like a gift that it was even held on my birthday at all but we also need to save money and I wouldn’t have liked the feeling of ditching a family dinner either. However if I had known with certainty what would happen after… I would have opted to keep my baby safe. More to brood on before school starts up.