Wednesday Afternoon:
Ella takes a three hour nap. I think to myself "Weird. But YES!" And watched 3 episodes of chopped.
She's in good humor after her nap, but a little on the quiet side. "Must be a growth spurt."
Wednesday evening:
Ella picks at her dinner. This is no surprise.
9 o'clock rolls around, she's falling asleep on her Daddy.
Goes to bed without drinking her milk. There's something sinister going on here.
Wednesday night/ Early Thursday:
Ella moans and groans in her sleep. Cody goes to check on her.
"Kaylea. Kaylea. Kay-lea. Kaylea. KAYLEA GAINES."
"What?!?!?! Shut up! It's 2:30!"
"Ella has fever."
"Okay." *rolls over*
*sighs, shakes Kaylea back into reality* "Listen to me. I think Ella has fever."
"What?"
Cody gives up and marches back to Ella's room. Kaylea follows behind in a zombie fashion.
Kaylea touches her sweet baby's foot and is instantly awake. Tries to remember where in the world we put the thermometer that we've used exactly once in her life. Checks temp. 102.2.
What?! There were no symptoms! No snotty nose. No irritability. No tears.
We gave her a little tylenol and Cody stayed in the room with her. He was already sick and feverish anyway. What else could be done at 3 in the morning?
Thursday Morning/Afternoon:
A miserable little baby turtle snuggled up with Mama while Mama closed her eyes and prayed without ceasing that Adam would be unscathed. How could I protect him without rejecting her germs? Then the dread settled in that he had already been too exposed yesterday. What was the point in freaking out about it now? We waited anxiously for the doctor appointment while Ella came in and out of sleep and tears. When we finally made it to the doctor, her fever was under 100 for the first time all day. Because why would it cooperate? After a dramatic start to the appointment, things didn't get much better when it was time to actually examine her. So I held my baby down while the poor doctor tried to look in her ears and mouth. She listened to her lungs. "Sounds good." Looked in her right ear. "That looks good too." Seriously? All this way and there's nothing wrong?! Looked in her left her. "Oh, that's no good." Looked at her throat. "That's definitely not good." Yep, after almost 22 months, Ella ended up with her first ear infection and tonsillitis. JOY. We were given appropriate prescriptions and sent on our merry way.
Thursday Evening/ Friday Morning:
Cody was sent home early from work, and it worked out so wonderfully, because it meant that the two sicklies could cuddle together while I sanitized and kept Adam away. She was the saddest, most pathetic thing I've ever seen. It broke both of our hearts. She wouldn't eat or drink anything, not even slushes or milkshakes. She just laid and trembled from weakness and fever. I felt helpless and distraught for most of the following two days.
Saturday and Sunday:
Ella stayed miserable and spent a lot of time crying. Still no eating, just a tiny bit of drinking. We would see peeks of her sweet personality before the sickness settled in again. I began to feel a bit of exhaustion settling in and began to wonder if Alexander Fleming was actually a fraud.
Monday:
Adam was due for his two month vaccinations. He was sniffling a bit that day, but the pediatrician assured me shots wouldn't make things worse or better. Ella was at my Mom's house, irritable as ever, seemingly unable to heal from this blasted sickness. Adam took shots like a champ, and seemed in great humor.
Monday night/ Early tuesday:
Ella cries all night long next to her equally exhausted Dad. She begins running fever again. She's also still refusing food. She's surviving on milk and pumped breastmilk at this point. Adam lays next to me running a low grade fever and coughing a scary cough. We call the doctor and get an immediate appointment. Kaylea breaks down in tears for the first time. That afternoon, I'm assured that both kids are recovering. Ella's ear is healed, and her throat looks much better. We're on the upside, she says. Adam is great, coughing because of drainage from allergies. The timing was uncanny, but whatever. She agreed that his cough sounded scary enough to bring in. Ten points for not being excessively paranoid. She even showed me his oxygen levels to reassure me. Best pediatrician in the land.
Wednesday:
Adam is on the upside. Everything is fine. Ella is in pretty good spirits. She even ate a little bit. We made it! It's over! Hallelujah.
Thursday:
I notice Ella has a rash on her belly. "Hmm. Must be heat rash." I go about my day. Next diaper change, the rash has spread. "What in the world?" I say. It's on her back, neck, legs, chest... basically if it was skin, the rash was present. It wasn't a raised rash, didn't seem to bother her... What in the flanahan is going on here? Another frustrated call to the doctor. "We've had three other recent patients call with a rash today. Email us pictures." Kaylea Bangs head against wall. A call twenty minutes later says it looks viral and to ride it out. Well GREAT, Kaylea says, then cries again.
Friday- Monday:
Ella looks terrible. Like a sickly, diseased baby turtle. Miserable. It hurt both of us to see her. But she was finally acting more like Ella and less like a raging psychopath, so that helped. Ate a full meal for the first time in over a week. Adam was untouched by the rash and we were so, so thankful.
It took two weeks before things evened out around here. I can't tell you how many times I text my Mom and told her I was losing my mind. I cried in the kitchen while I cooked. I cried when my kids cried. I was so tired. I was the only healthy one in my house for over a week, and sometimes I wanted to join the sicklies, but I was so thankful for my husband. He looked and felt like crap, but he was wonderful to help me when I needed it. On one hand, while Adam did succumb to his allergies, I remained amazed at the power of breastmilk. On the other hand, he nursed constantly and I thought I was going to lose my mind. He takes a bottle better than Ella did, but not when he didn't feel well. And nobody slept for two weeks. When Ella did finally sleep through the night, we got up to check on her countless times before we finally accepted that maybe she just felt like sleeping. And she slept twelve hours. And hasn't slept through the night since. Because now, dear friends, we're cutting stomach teeth on top and bottom, and two year molars. SIMULTANEOUSLY. AT THE SAME TIME, DO YOU HEAR ME?! It's never ending. It's always something. Sometimes I want to run away. But at the same time, I love it. And I love these babies. And I love comforting them. And I love that I'm able to stay at home with them and not worry about missing hours from a paycheck or what it will do to our budget. My husband is so good to provide for us in so many ways. I'm really just crazy about that hunk of burning love.
Adam is still thriving. He managed to nurse his way to 9 month clothes, but seems to be slowing down. He sleeps about five hours at night before he wakes up to nurse, but only eats for about five minutes before he goes back to sleep for an additional three hours. He goes three or four hours between feedings most days, but other days he eats every two hours until bedtime. Basically, he's breastfed, and I let him eat when he wants. Because he's a baby. He's got his head control pretty well figured out, and still has a great head of hair. As a matter of fact, he got his first haircut. He was not a fan. Ella got several inches cut off of her hair, because she uses it as a napkin and I was sick of the tangles. She was also a brat at her appointment, so basically we're not getting haircuts again until we're all recovered from that drama.
To end the month, we took a trip to the farm so that Cody's family could meet Adam. He was so sweet, and so good natured the entire trip. His sister, on the other hand... Bless the child. Tantrum, fit, tantrum, fit, snot, tears, tantrum, kicking and screaming, fit, tantrum, nap, food, fit, tantrum, bed. That's really the only way to summarize our trip. I had never seen my child act that way, and it didn't help that every time you tried to explain to her family that she's normally a pretty easy going kid, they would just raise their eyebrows and say "mhmm" in a tone that said "Bull Butter." Blergh. I've never been more embarrassed, and this is coming from the girl who does or says something stupid at least once a day. Ella won the embarrassment game. Hands down, white flag waved. It rained a crazy amount of rain while we were there, and apparently that was like... day eighteen... of rainfall for them. When you're in farm country and farmers can't farm, there's a certain gloom in the air that kind of weighs heavily on everyone involved. We were trapped inside the entire trip, Ella went stir crazy, I loved the quiet, and Cody stood at the door and watched it rain a lot. Cody's Grandpa held Adam for three hours straight, and it was nice because I think it distracted him from the pending "planting deadline." I'm not cut out for the farm life, y'all. Just give me a job that doesn't depend on mother nature and her mood swings. Sometimes I wish I had a job that didn't depend on Ella and her mood swings, but that's neither here nor there.
To sum it, my kids are in two extremely different life phases, which makes life difficult and hard. Ella is trying hard to figure words out, and grows extremely frustrated at a rapid pace if she's can't communicate what she's trying to say. Adam is somewhere between newborn and infant. Content to "hang out," but old enough to know he doesn't like to be left alone. Ella is surviving on macaroni and tomatoes (until she finds out that I blogged that she was eating something consistently, then she'll go on strike.) Adam still loves to nurse and I don't see any signs of him needing another form of nutrition any time soon. Ella has started letting us know when she needs a new diaper, so her "training potty" was ordered last week. I'll be wiping Adam's butt for at least another two years, help me Jesus. See what I mean? Two babies, two very different life phases. Sometimes it's WONDERFUL that Ella is transitioning from "baby to toddler," but I go back and forth from wishing she was already a toddler to mourning the time passing so quickly. I'm in no hurry for Adam to change a bit. He's so easy going, a champion nurser, and the last baby. I'm holding on tight to every second of him. And to Ella. Look, I have a lot of feelings I'm working through, okay?
That's it! Here's his sweet 3 month picture and his monthly picture with his sister. Sweetest babies.
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