Week 3: Sausage, Egg, and Cheese McMuffins

Whew!  What a week!

This week was a continuation of last week with everyone in the house getting over some form of cold/sinus infection/upper respiratory infection.  Sean was finishing off a prescription of amoxicillin, Scott and I were taking as many decongestant pills we could take in a 24 hour period, and poor Evan was left to fight off his cold by himself.  It took a toll on all of us, but it really did a number on Evan.

It's said that RSV is the equivalent of a heavy cold for an adult.  It's just that babies don't have the ability to fight off the cold the way we do and they certainly don't have ways of coping with the amount of congestion we all had these past two weeks.  Poor Evan didn't stand a chance.  Despite running a humidifier at night, dressing him warmly, keeping him on his sleep and eating schedule, he was getting worse each day.

By Thursday, I could see that Evan was working to breathe so we didn't hesitate to take him back to the pediatrician for the fourth time since the beginning of the month.  Yes, fourth.  He was diagnosed with RSV/bronchiolitus.  It's not the first time we've had to deal with that particular diagnosis.  In fact, just this time last year Sean was hospitalized for what started with RSV and ended with pneumonia.  I swear, we do take care of our children.  We feed them well, dress them appropriately, put them to bed early, etc.  I'm not sure what kind of punishment we've been given, but it seems really unfair to experience a version of this with both kids.

Sean last January.

By Saturday morning, Evan had a fever and was still working hard to breathe despite giving him breathing treatments every four hours.  Another trip to the pediatrician early in the morning confirmed that we needed to take him to the ER.  I kind of knew this was coming.  Poor thing.

Evan this January.

I can't express enough how difficult it has to been so see both of my boys hospitalized at such young ages.  More so, it's absolutely heartbreaking to see the ones you love in so much pain, connected to so many monitors, and needing oxygen support.  It was an exhausting 48 hour stay with very little sleep and meals consisting of fast food and carry out from various local restaurants.  Surprisingly, I didn't gain a single pound from this gorge of a weekend.  But, I'm happy to report that Evan was released this morning and is on the mend.  He was in such a fabulous mood all day today with tons of smiles, giggles, and squeals.  He's back to his normal self and I loved every minute of my time with him today.  And looking on the bright side of things, at least this happened over a 3-day weekend that allowed Scott and I to be by Evan's side constantly without worrying about what we were missing in our classrooms.  Though this wasn't what I had in mind for my 3-day weekend home with my kids.

Anyway, earlier in the week I had somehow managed to find enough time and motivation to put together a very easy breakfast recipe that I could freeze and use as quick weekday morning breakfasts for myself or Scott. We've gotten in the rut of eating bowls of cereal, mini bagels with cream cheese, fruits, yogurt, or frozen whole grain waffles.  I would love to have eggs on a weekday morning since they're such a great source of protein, but getting two kids ready, fed, dressed, and out the door by 6:45am doesn't allow me much time to be whipping up scrambled eggs and bacon.  

So, these breakfast sandwiches are simple:

I used 9 English muffins (that's what I had)

9 eggs

Milk to mix with the eggs

8 sausage patties (again, that's what I had)

9 slices of american cheese

I did a batch of 5 eggs first, followed by the other 4.  Once they started to set in the pan, I cut them into 5 separate pieces with my spatula.  While the eggs were cooking, I was frying up the sausage patties in a separate pan and broiling the English muffin pieces in the oven.  

Once the eggs, sausage, and muffins were ready, I put them all together with a piece of American cheese on top.  And that it's!  I let them cool, then wrapped each individual sandwich in a piece of paper towel and put them in freezer bags.  Now, all I have to do in the morning is grab a sandwich wrapped in paper towel, microwave it for about a minute, and breakfast is served!  I love that I can eat it while driving the boys to daycare or while I'm giving Evan his bottle.  Simple is key on a weekday morning.  Especially since we've all been sick and the snooze button on my cell phone alarm clock has become my best friend.