Sunday, January 20, 2008

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

On Saturday, the 12th, Mom and Mr. L came up to bring us some odds and ends for the house and to visit. We had a wonderful time. Rudy cooked an amazing dinner Saturday night and we all sat around the table and laughed at Caleb as he learned to say, "Oh, no!" and a hilarious version of "Oh, man!" It was a great visit.

On Sunday, we took advantage of Mr. L's truck and followed them to Ft. Smith to give Jan an outdoor cabinet that we couldn't get to her on our own. We stayed and had lunch with her before leaving for home.

I woke up on Tuesday feeling like I had been run over by a fleet of trucks. I absolutely couldn't get up and make it through a day with 3, 4 and 5 year olds, so I called in sick. I ended up sleeping 20 of the 24 hours of Tuesday. It took a few days before I started feeling better, but I didn't really have much of a choice...

On Thursday morning, Caleb woke up with a matted eye, runny nose and a fever. He had been coughing a lot all week, but the fever was what really concerned me. Rudy took the day off and took him to the pediatrician. He was diagnosed with a bad respiratory infection. He's on a nebulizer for breathing treatments and also a round of antibiotics. The nurse said that he didn't need to go to daycare on Friday - or any day until he got better because his immune system was weak and he could end up with RSV. So, Rudy stayed home on Friday as well. It was miserable for me to go to work and leave them here. I was worried all day, but I was so busy that I didn't have time to do much about it. Besides, it was a crummy day at work and I really just wanted to get home to my boys.

Friday night (after lots of debate about what was the right thing to do), Rudy and I went to dinner and a movie. We got a babysitter and actually went on a date. Kelly is a junior in college and we've known her since she was in high school. She had our cell phone numbers, so we felt comfortable leaving Caleb in her care. He was only awake for about 2 hours while she was here. Our much-needed date was fantastic - great meal and great movie (Juno) - and we got back here by midnight.

Nothing really changed with Caleb on Saturday. We stayed home all day and night. During his bath, he got a funny look on his face and said, "Poo." I asked him if he had to poop and he nodded his head. I picked him up out of the tub and put him on the toilet, but that made him cry, so I put a diaper on him. After a few minutes, he said, "bath" and I put him back in the tub. He hadn't dirtied his diaper, but he had wet it. Right after his bath, he did dirty the diaper that I put on him. I'm hoping this means he's starting to realize the feeling of needing to go to the bathroom and that will make potty training a little easier next year. We'll see. He's been doing that more and more often lately. While Mom and Mr. L were here last weekend, he started pooping IN the tub and I said, "Caleb, are you pooping?" He nodded at me and said, "Yeah." Mom scooped him up out of the tub and I cleaned it out before running him a fresh bath. Only in a mother's world!

He went to bed just fine Saturday night. I had trouble getting to sleep and had dozed off at about 2:45, when I started to hear him moaning and crying. I thought maybe he was just unsettled and would get back to sleep in a few minutes. It just got worse, though and he eventually started calling for me. I went into his room and picked him up. That's when I realized that he was burning up with fever. I changed his diaper and wet PJ's and then gave him some ibuprofen. As I tried to get him to sleep, I took his temperature and it was 102.9. I took a deep breath and prayed that the ibuprofen would work quickly. Fortunately, it did and I felt his fever break a short time later. He tossed and turned for a while and finally went to sleep about 4:00. Needless to say, we both took long naps today. We stayed in again today and I'm about to go stir crazy. Not stir crazy enough to look forward to going to work tomorrow - that would just be crazy!

Rudy is off tomorrow for MLK, Jr. day, but I have to go to work. We're going to wait and see how Caleb does tonight before we decide about daycare tomorrow. He seems to feel fine, but he's still very congested. He has danced around and played a lot today, and we have followed him around with tissues. I think he is just as stir crazy as we are, but we can't chance him getting any sicker, so we'll be conservative about sending him back.

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