Bad to Worse

I am sick. I admit it. I hardly ever get sick, but now I am and I have been miserable. Part of what has made it so bad is that I was the last to get sick after everyone else was sick. So after dealing with sickness in my kids all week, I now have no energy left to fight!

But such is life and I'm a mom and life goes on. I can't stay in bed or take a nap or curl up under a blanket on the couch like my kids can and should when they are sick. I just medicate and keep going (albeit with just a tad of grumpiness thrown in there...)

After being stuck in the house all week last week with sick kids, I just had to get away after dropping the boys off at school, even though I was feeling like death. So where did I go? The gym. I can see now that perhaps was not the best place to go, but it seemed logical at the time.

Knowing cardio was out of the question unless I wanted my throat to close up and suffocate me (which I did not), I chose squats - a lot of squats.

When I finished the number I set out to do, I put the bar back on the rack and just laid down flat on my back for a good ten minutes, willing my throat to open back up so I could at least breath, let alone cough up the phlegm blocking the way.

Now, today, on top of the aches and pains of being sick, my body is aching all over! It had been a whole week since I visited the gym prior to that last one, so I may have overdone it a bit. I can hardly move. I'd kick myself if I could lift my leg...

Just Not His Holiday

Thanksgiving is turning out to be... well... not a great day for Mitchell. Do you remember last Thanksgiving? Poor little guy. He still has a scar there.

Well, this Thanksgiving has been a bit less traumatic, but no less pleasant for Mitchell. He started feeling sick on Thursday and by Friday, he was sick enough to sleep off and on all day. He had no voice and a raging cough and would wake up from a restless sleep with his throat so tight and clogged, he'd have trouble breathing and panic.

The good thing was that we were waiting to do Thanksgiving until our family all got here, so that gave him a couple extra days to beat the bug. Well. today is the day we celebrate and last night poor Mitchell was so sick and miserable, we were up late debating the merits of the ER.

He's still in bed this morning. I am praying for progress. Let's keep our fingers crossed that I don't have to put ER docs on my list of things to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Boredom FIghters

We had a boring day at home today.

Sicknesses have taken on a whole new meaning since having kids. I don't just feel badly for a day or two, tough it out, and get back to life. Now, one boy gets sick. Just as he is feeling better, he passes it on to another brother. This repeats until every one of us have gotten sick seperately! No two of us ever seem to go through it together, drawing out total sick days until I stop counting them.

This kinda takes us out of commission for a large chunk of days! I can't even go to the gym as I can't really exercise while sick, nor can I bring even one sick boy in there for fear of infecting everyone else!

Yuk. I hate it when we all get sick...

So back to our boring day. We are just running out of things to do and driving each other crazy. I sent the big boys down to the basement alone for a while though and they were happy enough to escape Mom the Grouch. When I went down to check on them, they had dug out their light sabers (or, life savers as Mitchell calls them) and were busy attacking each other and the couches.

An idea hit me then: why not replace the batteries in these old things and return them to their functioning, though obnoxious, state? So we hunted up all the "dead" toys and had a little toy clinic where we fixed 'em up! The result was something amazing to watch!

And here are my two boredom fighting super heros:

Thankful For Sickness

Ben was not himself today. He was lethargic and moping around. He even crawled into his bed and got under the covers at one point! He couldn't think of anything to play and when I took him for a bike ride, he wouldn't shoot bad guys with me, just rode along in silence.

All day, I was asking him if he was ok and if anything was wrong. "No, I just don't have anything to do and no one wants to play spy cars with me..." I just thought he was moping because I don't know how to play "spy cars" and wasn't showing an eagerness to learn.

Well, right before dinner, I found him curled up on the couch down in the basement. It finally dawned on me to take his temperature and, sure enough, he is sick. Why did it take me so long to suspect he was sick, not just moody? Well, normally he lets me know when he isn't feeling well and will just find a place to curl up and sleep. Today, he kept trying to keep going. He threw me off the scent!

After choking down a few bites of dinner, he took a bath without his pesky little brothers (not a luxury I usually grant any of them), and asked if he could just get in bed. He was asleep before I even finished reading a story.

I have to admit that when I discovered his temperature, I was relieved. I just breathed a sigh of relief that he wasn't entering into some moody phase or some hard-to-figure-out phase. Ben has always been so easy for me to read. I rarely am left wondering what he is thinking or why he is behaving a certain way. Today had me worried, like our connection was weakening. The fever eased my worries. Sometimes I am just thankful for little sicknesses.

What Else Can Go Wrong Here?

My boys are all sick. Ben is definately on the mend, Mitchell is right in the middle of it, and Jack is just starting. Fun. How I am not sick is a mystery to me.

Ben was well enough to send to school today, but Mitchell was still coughing a pretty nasty sounding cough, so with a desire to keep his teacher on my good side, I decided to keep him home with me. Only about half an hour after school would normally have started for him though, he seemed good as new and I was wondering what in the world I would do with him for the next few hours that I normally don't have to plan things for him!

I suddenly remembered that our neighborhood McDonald's recently remodeled their play room and we hadn't checked it out yet, so I packed my sick(ish) little boys up and we headed off for some lunch and playtime.

The moment we stepped through the door, I knew I had made a mistake. The place was PACKED! The remodel had taken over half of the restaurant, devoting it to a play place for the little ones. Great news, right? Well, not so great if you have hungry boys and no where to sit! We ended up sitting on tall bar chairs, balancing while trying to eat. Half way through the meal, Mitchell needed the restroom in an emergent way and we had to get there NOW! Well, I had lunch items to pack up, boys to get down from bar stools, jackets to grab and carry, purse to find somewhere in the mess, giant 1-year-old to carry because he refuses to follow me if left to walk on his own... we got there in time - barely.

I gave up on eating anything after that, poured my undrunk (and gross) coffee down the drain, and headed to the playroom. It was a zoo. Here in the city, it is difficult to find free ways to entertain your children indoors, so the nannies were taking full advantage of this place! I think each nanny must have had 6 kids with her, or else someone was just dropping their kids off and coming back for them later. The kid to adult ratio just didn't add up...

Mitchell and Jack played for about 10 minutes before Mitchell started coughing. A normal cough at first, which is usually my sign to get out the cough medicine. As I did not have it with me, it quickly progressed to a more persistent and wet sounding cough. After only a few minutes, he was coughing so hard and so often that he had to come sit down and there were only a few seconds between coughs. Next comes the cough-induced gagging, which was my sign to grab coats, purse, 4 year old, and toddler and try to get shoes back on before the vomiting started. I could feel every woman's "evil eye" on me (rightfully so) as I desperately tried to get out of there before I further infected the other children and, more importantly, before he threw up!

Just as I was getting the first shoe on, the coughing intensified. Cue the gag reflex. Cue the vomit. I didn't realize he wasn't really chewing his food. The evidence of 4 whole orange wedges was enlightening to me. Thank goodness he didn't really have much of his lunch and we just had oranges and foul smelling water all over the floor (and one unfortunate woman's shoe... sorry...) Shoe #2 is now on and up comes the rest of the contents of his stomach. I was ready for it this time and I caught i (gross) and tossed it in the trash.

I didn't bother putting coats back on, but picked everything up, one kid under each arm (good thing I work out!) and ran out of there as fast as I could. I didn't even bother to wash my hands first. My first priority was to get away from the other children, then the people eating their lunches. Does it really matter if I wash my hands immediately if my shirt is covered in vomit anyways?

Poor Mitchell. It must be terrifying to cough until you vomit. I obviously took on more than he was ready for today, despite his feigned "recovery" this moning. I should have been satisfied staying indoors in our jammies, coloring and watching The Land Before Time. Lesson learned... I hope...

Just Let Me Be Mad!!!

Tomorrow, we are off on our Christmas vacation!  The big boys are beside themselves with excitement.  Not only do they get to take a plane trip (as if they haven't done enough of those in their short lives) and see both sets of grandparents, they get to do Christmas all over again with both sets!  What's not to love about that?!

Notice I only said the "big" boys are excited.  Jack has no idea what is going on, and I'm sure doesn't really care much about two Christmases, but he is most definately not excited these past couple days!

My normally happy, peaceful, easy-going baby has fallen upon tough times, I'm afraid.  Let me list for you his ailements:

1 ear infection

1 nasty case of diaper rash covering the entire diaper region

1 common cold complete with constantly dripping nose and cough

3 molars breaking through the skin

1 hole through his lower lip (which is now healing and, I assume, itching like mad now!)

Let me tell you, this guy cannot be consoled!  He does not want to be held/snuggled/sat in my lap.  If I try that, he wriggles with all his might until he is just a heap on the floor.  He does not want a toy.  Don't try to give him one unless you want it thrown right back at your nose!  He doesn't want his big brothers to tickle him or try to interact with him in any way.  They get their hair pulled or head smacked if they get too close.  

Seriously, we have tried everything to make him forget his pain and discomfort, but he is not having any of it!  The only thing he wants to do is sit alone on the floor, point at me (as if I purposely did this to him!), make a mean face, and cry/whine at me!  The tone to the whole thing is, "Don't try to make me happy!  Don't touch me!  Don't you dare smile at me!  I am so MAD!"  

It appears he has inherited both a bit of Mitchell's attitude and also Ben's drama and is letting them both combine in his misery.  Poor little boy... Please get well soon!

I Miss You, Mitchell

It seems as if most of my posts are about Mitchell, my craziest and most willful of the three boys.  He is a handful, for sure.  All his energy and stubbornness make for great blog posts, but also often make quite a bit of work for a parent!  I sometimes find myself wishing he would just calm down a bit, relax, and just listen and obey me for goodness sakes!

Never would I have expected that the very things that daily frustrate me about my middle child are the very things I love the most about him, though.  This fact has been pointed out to me in the last few days when he has been sick.  He has croup, which has left him very sleepy, very snugly, very sad, and without a voice.  For Mitchell to not have a voice makes an amazing difference in the overall volume level in our house!  He also is not usually one who needs a lot of sleep either, so the combination of sleepy and quiet has been quite a shock around here!  You would think I would secretly relish this crazy son of mine being sick, but I don't - not even in secret!  I now realize how I have come to depend on him to get us energized and moving in the mornings.  He keeps us on our toes and keeps us going when we are wearing out.  He makes us laugh when we are all tired and tired of each other.  He plays funny, silly games with Jack when I have run out of what it takes to entertain a baby.  He keeps Ben thinking and planning and creating new games and keeps him from sitting around with "nothing to do."  He keeps me re-inventing and re-evaluating, forces me to remain focused on being a good mom/parent, and just brings so much fun and humor amidst all the other stuff!

I do not wish another sleepy day upon him.  He has slept almost 2 whole days now and we are all ready for him to wake up and "do his duty" for his family again!  We need you, Mitchell and we miss you!  And I need more blog material!  Get well soon!