Up. Down. Up. Down. Down and Out.

We are home. Thanks everyone for checking in over the last couple of days, and sorry we’ve been slow to update.

We are SICK. And so the last couple of days has been a lot of sleeping and complaining and crying and medicating. BDH has a cold, Stinkerbelle has a cold and the runs, and I have embarked upon the Ethiopian weight loss program (also known as a violent case of digestive malfunction).

The trip went fairly well. Other than a rough first leg from Addis to Dubai, in which a woman beside me let her Satan child run wild, throwing dishes, stealing food from my tray, and smacking other passengers with a metal knife, and in which she also refused to accept that she was limited to one seat and was constantly leaning into mine or the passenger on the other side and draping her child across her lap to kick and head butt me all trip long, it was fine.

In the Dubai airport, we were directed to an oasis of calm, the Marhaba Lounge, where we were in a quiet spot to catch a few catnaps and with an unlimited buffet from which to partake — all for FREE. And then the long road home from Dubai to Toronto, all 14 hours of it, which was almost enjoyable aside from the sheer exhaustion. We were awake from around 10 pm Toronto time on Wednesday until we touched down in Toronto at 3:15 on Friday. And sleep did not come for a long time after that.

Toronto Terminal 1, for all its newness, is still an organizational nightmare. It took us an hour and a half at least to clear customs and immigration and get our bags (all the while our little girl had a full diaper and she did not complain one tiny bit — she was a real trooper), and then an hour and a half car ride to home.

When we finally got home Friday evening, and for the remainder of the weekend, we tried to catch what sleep we could, given the totally screwed up time schedules and being sick as dogs. BDH has been holding down the fort, being the least sick of all of us, and has been absolutely incredible. He’s up half the night with the girl, and then ran out today to get her an OHIP card so we can get her in to the doctor tomorrow, while I remain horizontal to avoid risk of passing out.

So there’s the latest. We still have so much to tell, after such a journey. But it will have to wait until I get further into my course of Cipro and Gatorade. I’m down and out for the count today.