2 X 2

Well, we are sick at our house. Both kids have a double ear infection. This is a first for us. It is the first ear infection and first prescription medicine. I hate medicine but we have really been fighting a constant slew of runny noses, tummy aches, coughs and now ear infections for over a month. I am tired of not being 100% around here. This weekend we went out of town (that will be another post). Toward the end the kids started to get a little grumpy. Katherine started to complain that her ear hurt and when we got home Caroline had a fever of 100.9. So, I decided to go ahead and see the Dr. today. I was pretty surprised when all 4 ears were infected and one (I think it was Katherine) had ruptured. The doctor's appointment was right at naptime and we went to Target to get the meds afterwards. Katherine went down for her nap at 4:15 and is still asleep at 10:15 so either she is down for the night or we will have an interesting night when she wakes up.

Pray that we get better soon. I hate seeing my kids in pain and it is no fun to be stuck at home with sick kids.

Sick.

Last night Katherine did not want to take a bath (kicking and screaming). She let me pick her books to read at bed time. She fell asleep during our prayer. And, it was 30 minutes before her usual bedtime. I just thought she was tired from playing with Ben all day. Until an hour later she was moaning and groaning. I went in and she had a fever of 101.8. She was miserable. I ended up cuddling up to her so she would fall asleep and ended up in there most of the night. Today she was pretty pitiful and moped around all day. It was the first time she has been sick where she was old enough to actually tell me what hurt. We watched a lot of TV. We read books. We snuggled. She did a great job of not touching Caroline. I explained that she did not want to give Caroline her "sick germs".

Her fever broke (thanks to Tylenol) during her nap and we had about 3 good hours before it came back. In that time we did a few fun crafts and she watched me make muffins. I took pictures of her working on the crafts but not the finished products. Oops. I stole the ideas from other blogs so you can see their finished products here and here.
Her fever did come back and the Tylenol took care of it again. I hope she sleeps through the night and wakes up better tomorrow. If not we will head to the doctor. If you know me, you know it is killing me to be stuck at home.

Update

Today Katherine has still been sick with a stomach bug. Poor thing is a little confused about it all and has been so sweet. After throwing up on mommy she kept apologizing over and over. She has been super cuddly and we have watched more TV today than on any other single day yet. I am not proud but with a sick toddler and a ready to pop mom what can you do?

I am not feeling great either. My stomach is upset. I am hoping that I am not getting sick with what she has. This is not the best week for a stomach bug to hit our house for sure.

Please be praying that Katherine gets better and that I do not get it.

I do NOT want to go into labor tonight

Why? Because I have a sick toddler. Since there was no sign of a baby coming today we called Nana and Pops to see if Katherine could spend the night at their house tonight. That way Sam and I could have a date, maybe dinner and a movie, without worrying about getting back in time to get Katherine in bed. Since we all go to the same church it works well and in the morning they just bring her to church.

We arrived at Nana's and Katherine was really snugly with her daddy. She had just gotten up from a nap about 20 minutes before so we did not think anything of it. Then as she was laying on the couch, she threw up. The only other time she has ever thrown up was when she was 9 months old so this really scared her. We decided not to go out and stayed over there until she had stopped. She had 2 more episodes. Katherine was so sweet about it. She was scared but kept saying she was sorry to Nana and to me for making a mess. She wanted to wash her hands and felt bad that my shirt was messy.

We came home and she seems to feel fine. Hopefully this was a short stomach bug or something she ate. Regardless, I don't think tonight would be my preferred night to go into labor since I have a sick toddler.

Katherine leaving Nana's house with her new suitcase after feeling better.

So, when is my preference of when to go into labor? Well, I will take anything before July 25th (deadline before they want to do a c-section) but if I had to choose, I would want to give birth on Friday, July 18th, my actual due date. This is the only day that both my midwife and my OB are on call so I thought that would be a good day. Plus, with giving birth on a Friday Sam would not have to worry about how things are at work while we are in the hospital and it is a good time for friends and family to come visit. Really though anytime next Thursday-Sunday my midwife is the one on call so that works for me.

So, as long as you are thinking of me, pray that I deliver on the 18th and that I continue to feel as good next week as I did this week.

Sick

Katherine is sick. I am not sure what she has but she ie pretty pathetic. It is a weird sickness. She was totally fine when I picked her up from MDO. We went to Whole Foods, Nana's and then met Ben at the park. She acted totally normal at all of those places. She fell asleep on teh 5 minute drive from the park to our house at 4:45 (not a normal nap time). I thought she was just worn our from her day and a shorter nap at MDO. An hour later when she woke up she just wanted to snuggle, had no desire to eat dinner and had a fever of 101.8 (under the arm so actually higher). We put her to bed at 7 and she slept all night.

This morning she woke up with no fever and acting like her normal self. She was chatty and playful and even went outside to push her baby around in the stroller. I decided to go ahead and take her to a Valentines party at our neighborhood rec center. I carried her and and she would not let me put her down at all. She never played, just snuggled with mommy. We left early and before I even pulled out of the parking lot she had fallen asleep. She had the same fever when we got home. She ate a little fruit and then went down for a nap over an hour earlier than usual.

I don't know what type of sickness this could be but we are staying in for the rest of the day and just resting. I hate seeing her feel bad.

Highs and Lows

This week has barely started and there are already a list of highs and lows.

The Highs:

• Katherine has now been fully weaned for 2.5 weeks. She does still ask for it every day but I think she is kind of joking now. She will crawl into my lap and squish my chest and say "moot (milk), other side" over and over. Then she will say "mama empty, milk all gone". Today I reminded her that she had her yogurt milk in her cup to drink now (Kefir and milk mix) and she pointed to my chest and said, "mommy yogurt". Wouldn't that be fun if I made yogurt.
• Because Katherine is now weaned I am again able to cuddle and put her back to bed. That was the hardest part. For over a week I was having to distance myself and not have much cuddle time. It was hard. It was good that Sam has been home and he is such a great dad.
• Much, much family time. Sam has over 3 weeks of no work since he quit one job and delayed the start of the next one. We are getting a lot of family time which Katherine loves and we are getting a lot done around the house.

The Lows

• Tantrums - yikes, our sweet little girl can be a Jekyll/Hyde personality. She has thrown some major tantrums. We are really struggling with how to best deal with them. She is trying so hard to be independent. Sometimes she has done something she knows is wrong and it needs to be punished but sometimes she is just exploring her world and mommy says, "No". Then, mommy tries to show empathy and redirect her. For example, the other day I was folding clothes in her room and she was in her bathroom. I hear her say, "wet, mess". I turn around and she was dipping a burp cloth in the toilet and then using it to clean the tub. I took a deep breath and chose not to blow up or punish her. How would she know that the water in the toilet was not to be used to clean whereas the water in the sink or tub was? I got down on her level and said, "Katherine, you are such a good helper. We don't use the water from the toilet. Why don't we get a clean towel and mommy will get it wet in the sink and then you can use it to clean the bathtub." Her response - "yeah mommy". If I had taken away the burp cloth and told her "no" then she would have started a tantrum. There are plenty of those anyway so I want to avoid them when I can redirect.
• Potty training and diapering is getting to be frustrating. My plan was to switch back to cloth diapers after the holidays. The hope was that because they are cloth and feel more like underwear it would help us to finish off potty training. Well, between travel and sickness, it got put off until today. I have tried twice to put her in a cloth diaper and both times it has resulted in one of the aforementioned tantrums. Her request - "Elmo diaper mommy." I hate Elmo for this. I refuse to buy cute cloth diapers so that she will wear them when I have a perfectly good stash. I have not chosen to make it a battle yet because I know that she can and will probably win. If I do get the diaper on her, she is now capable of taking them off. Where does that leave me? With a big old mess. I was going to a cloth diaper store today to buy some petite training pants but they were closed due to an illness so that was a bummer.
• Sinus infections will not leave. All three of us seem to be stuck in a state where we are not really sick but we don't feel great either. Katherine actually has a runny nose (clear) and Sam and I just have the congestion, sore throat and cough. The worst part for me as that this is the only thing making my pregnancy sickness happen.

I know that parenting (and life for that matter) is always full of highs and lows. Those are just a few from this week.

poo poo again mommy

That was a common phrase today. Oh what fun to have a potty training toddler with diarrhea and a 11 week pregnant mommy for whom this illness wants to make her ill as well. (if mommy's news is new to you, keep scrolling down a few posts, you are behind:) We spent a lot of time today in the bathroom. At least we are not to the point of wearing big girl panties yet, diapers are still nice. It was also a good thing that Daddy is off this week and around to help when Mommy couldn't handle it. This is the first time Katherine has had this so I do consider myself lucky. She has a horrible cough and congestion as well. She took a 3 hour nap today so that was good.

Amazingly while she has been awake she has been in a good mood and had fun playing with all of her new toys. She only asked to nurse once but it was pretty relentless and made mommy cry. As of tomorrow morning it will have been a week since she has been weaned. She still asks for "moot" at least once a day but it is getting easier to distract her. At this point, there is nothing there for her to eat.

No sick days

One of the most difficult and challenging things about being a mom just may be that you don't get to take a sick day when you are sick. You are still a mom and you are still on duty. Today was one of those days.

I have been feeling under the weather all week with a sinus infection of some sort. Today Sam and I both woke up feeling like we had been run over by a freight train. He had different issues but felt just as bad. He took a sick day and we both would have stayed in bed all day but Katherine was in a very good mood. That is good since she has been sick but it was not easy. We did lay on the couch most of the day and we both took a long nap when Katherine napped.

Let's pray that we all are better tomorrow.