Swine Flu hits home

I've always considered myself a relatively fit and healthy individual. Aside from the yearly cold, seasonal allergies and a random injury from acting like a 20 year old, I have been pretty lucky. This all changed 3 weeks ago when I caught, what I thought was a common cold and shared it amongst the boys and the wife. They all had a brief episode of illness while mine progressed to something far more malignant. Apparently I contracted H1N1 and then topped that off with a bout of pneumonia. 2.5 weeks later I am much better , but still have the lingering effects of the pneumonia! The boys were relatively sympathetic, but occasionally realized that my sickness vastly diminished my enforcing powers and took full advantage of my laxity! Popcorn for lunch? Sure. Ice cream? Whatever you guys want. While it wont win me the Parent of The Year Award, it kept the ship sailing straight while i was mildly incapacitated.

We are settling in to our new abode nicely. Everyone seems very happy with the new surroundings. 1.5 more weeks until we get the cast off the oldest and he can resume his injury risking activities. This wont come soon enough. He daily tries to push the limits of my patience and can't understand why he can't skateboard now! Such a bright kid, but at times lacks common sense. I guess I gave him that trait.

Let's get one thing clear....

I never enjoyed creative writing in school, nor do i claim to have any expertise in it. My blogs will contain numerous grammatical, spelling and pronunciation errors and probably a run-on sentence or two. Liquor tends to open my creative imagination, but also brings to light my lack of writing ability. It's a double edged sword that is a necessity on some of the more difficult days.

The past 2 weeks have been drama filled. We took advantage of the slow housing market to get quite a deal on a beautiful house. That puts our hose total to two. Not the ideal situation, but we are hopeful our real estate agent will alleviate that stressor by selling our old house quickly. While preparing for  our move I was at the new house cutting the lawn one evening and i received a semi frantic call from the Dr. informing me that i needed to come home because Michael just broke his arm in the driveway skateboarding. I rushed home to find him on the kitchen floor, arm on a pillow, and looking like the letter S. "That broken" I said as we packaged him up for our 3rd ER visit in the past month and a half.

Arm fixed in the ER, movers coming a few days later, packing to be done. Stress? What stress? The move went surprisingly smooth. All unpacked now. Settling in and then illness hits the household. It starts with me feeling a little ill, then quickly spreads like a Californian wildfire through the house. Swine flu? Avian Flu? Nobody these days thinks they have just a common cold. That would be just ordinary. Another couple of days out of school for the skateboarder. Jack made it to school last week but his chances for tomorrow are looking slim and the Dr. looks like she might miss it all. Flu shots are given out free to all  medical staff and seems to have been beneficial in her case.

Monday morning looms in the very near future. As i sip my last few drops my therapeutic red wine and prepare for the week ahead of adventure. These quiet times in the evening when I have a few moments alone I sit back and realize how blessed I am to have such a great family. While I don't deny they drive my utterly insane at times. I wouldn't give up this opportunity for anything in the world...Good Night.

A little bit about myself and my fam....

I my name is Bill Quillen, I am 42, and i am a stay at home dad in Aurora, Colorado and the father of 2 boys, Michael (8) and Jack(4). My beautiful wife Sue is a prominent and successful Colon and Rectal Surgeon who practices in the Denver metro area. Years ago when first dating and things looked like they would get serious, the question of raising a family came up. So the question at hand was the following. If we got married, would you be  agreeable to being a stay-at -home dad? With Sue's potentially hectic schedule, her involvement in raising kids would be drastically limited during the workday due to practice commitments. I thought this over carefully and thought that it would be a life-changing opportunity to go against society norms and watch my kids grow from a front row seat. I was in my late 20s, been on the Pro Fun circuit for quite a few years and thought that was a great career path. Fast forward to the year 2001. We have moved from CT to MN for a quick year layover and now in Denver with a kiddo on the way!! Pro Fun Tour has come screeching to a halt and parenthood looms in my horizon. I worked for a while after Michael was born in 2001, but trying to schedule days to work around Sue's schedule in order to get hours in became tiresome. Work slowly became time where I could interact with adults and talk in complete sentences. Semi complete sentences in the case of some of my friends! Slowly it became not worth the effort to work and I became a full time stay at home dad. OR as Sue puts it..."I didnt work outside the home". Days were spent at the park, the pool, the mall and the grocery store! After I mastered the single child household 4 years in we decided to mix things up a bit and throw in another child to make things more interesting. Jack Christopher arrived in 2005 and there we have it. I have totally embraced the role as the principal caregiver of my 2 boys and  wouldn't give it up for anything. While exceedingly challenging at times, I cherish every moment I have to aid in the development of my 2 boys. My wife's practice continues to grow and thrive partly due to the fact she doesn't have to worry about what is going on at home. I like to think she has total confidence in my management of the daily household activities and can focus on her patients and practice.