Spring Break

Well, I don't have any kids in school yet and I didn't plan on taking any time off during spring break, but Lucy had other plans. On Sunday she had a runny nose and a cough, but we have all had that almost all winter, so I didn't think anything of it - until she woke up in the night with a fever. I gave her Tylenol and figured that she is probably just teething. The next morning I bathed her and gave her a bottle and continued to get ready for work - then she thew up. She was burning up again, so I decided I better stay home with her. I have been wishing I didn't have to work, and that I could stay home with my kids, but after that day I almost changed my mind! Lucy was miserable and cranky, Stetson was SUPER naughty, my house was disgusting, and I was buried in laundry. I just about had a come apart. Kenny assured me that not every day would be like this, I hope he is right!

I went in to work at 5 am the next morning to try to get caught up. Lucy was still running a fever and not feeling well, so I took her and the swing with me to work and left Stetson with Suzie. Lucy slept quite a bit, and I was able to get the pressing things done, but by about 2:00, she was done. I noticed that she had been tugging at her ears quite a bit, so I decided to take her in to the doctor. Sure enough - BOTH ears were infected! Plus, she had white spots on her tonsils that looked like strep; since kids under 2 don't usually get strep, they didn't test her. They just gave me some antibiotic and sent me on my way. We started the antibiotic at about 5:00 that evening. I had been giving her tylenol every 4 hours, but the doctor recommended that I alternate tylenol and ibuprofin to get the fever down, as her fever had not broke since Sunday night.

Wednesday morning came and she seemed to be doing worse, plus Stetson was stuffy and had a cough, so I decided to stay home again. I was trying to do some stuff for work on my home computer when I heard water running. I went into the kitchen and there was water pouring out of my celing light - seriously! It was like something out of a movie! I ran upstairs and found Stetson in our new, not quite finished, bathroom having a great time with the sprayer. The water was on full blast into the tub, a five gallon bucket by the tub was full to overflowing, and the floor was covered in water. Of course he got in trouble for the upstairs mess, but I figured we had broken pipes or something to cause the mess downstairs. I tried to think positive, and told myself that at least it was in the kitchen where I could just wipe the water off the tile and not in the front room where I would have to try and dry out the carpet.

I figured that Lucy would be feeling better by Thursday, so I got the kids ready and took them to my sister's house. Lucy was still burning up and screaming her head off; Candice said she didn't mind keeping her, but she was also tending a baby for someone else, so I decided to take her to work with me again. She screamed and screamed, and I knew she was in pain because she kept tugging at her ears and hitting her head with the back of her hand. I FINALLY got her to sleep and laid her in her carseat by my desk, then tried to get some work done. That is when I noticed that she was very raspy, and her breathing was pretty labored. She started coughing, which woke her up, and her cough sounded awful! My boss came in and suggested that I take her home - I agreed. So I went home and made another appointment at the doctor because I thought she should be doing better than this by now! When they listened to her lungs and watched her breathe, they thought she had RSV, so they tested her and it came back negative. They recommended that I take her to the hospital for some breathing treatments and possibly to be on oxygen for awhile. I found Kenny and talked to him about it and he kind of chastized me for overreacting and not being patient - "just wait for the antibiotic to kick in," he told me. I was angry and nervous about my baby, and didn't know what to do. I ended up going home and just holding her, watching her every move. Mostly she just laid there with her eyes half open, her body limp as a a wet noodle. A million things went through my mind as I sat there and held her. I felt like the worst mom ever! Stetson kept wanting me to play football with him, or help him with a puzzle, but if I laid Lucy down, she would scream. By evening I was a mess; I couldn't even think straight enough to make a decision. My mom was having the grandkids over to decorate cookies for St. Patrick's day, so I decided to take the kids over there and get her opinion on what to do. I loaded up the kids and started to back out; at first I thought I was running over something, but when I got out to look, my front passenger tire was sitting on the rim. That made me feel even more helpless! I called my mom and my sister came by to pick Stetson up and take him over to decorate cookies. When Kenny got home and saw how bad off Lucy was, we decided to take her to the ER. She still had a fever, her ears were still infected, and her oxygen levels were low. So they gave her a shot, put her on oxygen and gave her several breathing treatments to try to open up her lungs. It worked, and at about 11:30 her oxygen stats were high enough that they let us go home. Thanks so much to my parents for keeping Stetson all that time!

For the first time all week, Lucy and I got a little sleep - it was wonderful! Kenny stayed home with the kids while I went in to work for a few hours, trying to get caught up. Lucy is doing tons better, though she is still not herself. We missed our planned trip to the Rec Center on Saturday, but did get some work done on the house. After some investigation we found that the water leaking through the ceiling light in the kitchen was not due to broken pipes or a drain not hooked up properly (thank goodness, I sure didn't want to have to tear out that new tile that has taken so long to put in!). The water actually leaked through the edge of the tile and the wall where we have not yet applied culk. The floor was easy to clean up, but it sure made a mess of our ceiling!

I also realized that there is a silver lining behind every cloud. This may sound mean, but some of my favorite mommy moments are when my kids are sick, they just snuggle up to me and let me rock them for hours - it is wonderful! It also makes me feel like they actually need me and want to have me around. Stetson is now getting to the age where mom is more in the way than anything else. But we had a great time building forts, playing ball and doing puzzles together while Lucy snoozed in her swing. Lucy is doing much better, we actually saw a smile on Friday for the first time in a week, and today she is crawling everywhere and climbing up on things again. Thank goodness for modern medicine!I'm sad I didn't get a picture of some of Stetson's other forts, cuz there were some pretty cool ones. But we did get a picture of the "bed fort" that he made for the three of us to sleep on. You will note that he took the mattress off his bed and put it in the doorway (that is what I am laying on).

After all of this, I truely am grateful for my wonderful kids!