What’s worse than a sick kid? Two sick kids…
February 5, 2010I’m coming out of radio silence this week after juggling two rather sick boys for the week. It started last Sunday with two very cranky boys. We went for a drive to get out of the house – Xander of course needed to pee and for the first time ever, we got turned down when we asked to use a restroom. Where, you ask? The Campton Cupboard. They have zero sympathy for pee-pee dancing 3 year-olds, so don’t even try. Also, if you try to use the restroom in the Dunkin’ Donuts in Campton, be forewarned that it’s easier to pee outside than it is to try to skip in front of rude tourists in line.
Fast forward to several sleepless nights and two days home, first with Xander and then with Parker (who managed to catch another bout of RSV, complete with a 101.6 temperature and back onto nebulizer treatments). Parker is still waking up between 2:30 and 3:30 every morning for a few hours, and Xander is still crying every morning that he doesn’t feel good and doesn’t want to go to school (please note that by the time we arrive at school he is running to get inside and play with his friends, so we’re not taking those complaints too seriously).
Evenings have been EXHAUSTING. First, one kid will cry, and then before one of us can calm that one down, the other starts crying so we’ve had an almost constant flow of tears between the hours of 5pm and 8pm for the past 5 days. Yeah, I’m on my pity wagon – all are welcome! I’m hopeful that we’ll turn the corner this weekend and start to see more smiling and less crying.
Unfortunately, Xander has rediscovered his love of puzzles recently. He’s getting quite good at putting them together on his own. The biggest challenge is that Parker firmly believes that his primary role in our family is to pick up puzzle pieces and put them in boxes. He couldn’t care less if anyone else might have wanted to use that particular piece. This of course starts a great deal of arguments and the cycle continues until Parker goes to sleep. Ah, the joys of parenthood…
I’m not sure how I became a target, but somehow Xander has decided that spitting up on me is the best place to get sick. It doesn’t matter how vigilant I am with a burp cloth, Xander will save his spit-up for times when I’m not burping him, and have of course forgotten the cloth over my shoulder. In the past 3 weeks I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been on the receiving end of spit-up. One eventful night Xander got my t-shirt – but I was prepared for that, and had a spare t-shirt next to the bed. After I changed my t-shirt, I nursed Xander, and he managed to spit up on my pants. I wasn’t prepared for that, so Zach held the baby while I changed my pajama bottoms. As I took Xander back, he managed to spew spit-up into my hair (I had it pulled back, that kid just has a special knack for getting spit-up everywhere!), so at 4:30 am I found myself in the shower… Yesterday Xander managed to spit up on two sweaters (both dry clean only…), and this weekend he managed to spew what looked like 4 ounces of milk all over the both of us – before I could even get him to the burp cloth on my shoulder! Why is any of this interesting? Because Xander doesn’t spit up on anyone else – just me. Well, to be accurate, he did catch our friend Sandee with some this past weekend, but other than that isolated incident, I think I have caught all of Xander’s spit-up, and I don’t spend as much time with him these days, as Zach is at home with him during the day, and gets up with him at night. Somehow in the 6 hours during the week and the weekends Xander manages to save all of his spit-up time for me – I don’t wear perfume, Zach and I use the same shampoo, laundry detergent, etc., so I’m hoping that it isn’t something about my scent that makes my kid ill, but at this point I’m starting to worry that something about me makes my kid sick…
