Posts Tagged ‘illness’

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What’s worse than a sick kid? Two sick kids…

February 5, 2010

I’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…

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Xander Week 59 – The Flu…

December 13, 2007

Tired BoyJust after Thanksgiving Xander came down with the flu. It started with some restless nights, and then he started eating less. Then at about 3am on Sunday morning after Thanksgiving I awoke to Xander and Zach covered in vomit. It was of course, miserable getting the two of them cleaned up. And just after we had all settled down again – Xander in our bed, the little guy got sick again, necessitating a change of my clothes and the sheets….

The next week went pretty much like that. The only plus was that after the first day, Xander didn’t have any real food coming back up, so it was mostly just water. After 3 days we called our doctor, and after 4, we made an appointment with them. They had us giving Xander 1 tablespoon of water every 5 minutes until he could keep it down. From there, we gradually introduced Gatorade, and then finally after a week of this, we started introducing carbohydrate-heavy food. The doctor told us that the sweet smell to Xander’s breath was his body burning muscle instead of fat, because he had already used up all of his reserves of fatty cells.

It was a very long week. As I get paid hourly, we couldn’t afford for me to stay home, so Zach stayed home with Xander for three days. I felt terrible that I couldn’t stay home with him, and he was just so miserable – he was just a limp noodle for almost a week. As he was starting to recover, and starting to feel hungry again, it was so hard on us – he would stumble to the refrigerator, and then hold onto the handles and cry – clearly indicating that he wanted something to eat or drink, but since he was barely able to keep down Gatorade, we couldn’t really give him much to eat at that point.

Finally, he was able to keep down some peanut butter toast, and then some buttered noodles, and then he was ready to eat just about anything. It was so hard to see him so sick, and know that there wasn’t anything we could do to help him. The flu is a miserable experience – even if you aren’t the one getting sick.

baby, toddler, parent, parents, parenting, mother, mothers, motherhood, illness, sickness, flu, vomit, Gatorade

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I Am A Spit-up Magnet!

December 8, 2006

Who, Me?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…

babies, baby, burping, illness, infant, nursing, sick baby, spit-up