Wednesday, February 16, 2005

A House Full of Sickies

It was 5:30 am and I was lying in bed “snuggling” between three sick people. “This isn’t a good position to be in,” I thought to myself…so I got up.

Let’s step back a bit and see how I got in this germ-filled position…

It started on Sunday night, when M felt really awful. He had a headache, seemed to have a fever (we didn’t have a thermometer at the time because I dropped our old one in the toilet). He was nauseous and felt like he had been hit by a truck. He didn’t feel any better on Monday and T began to feel bad too. But T had cold symptoms – a runny nose and a bit of a cough.

Last night R said that his forehead hurt. I figured that he had sinus pressure from a cold, so I gave him cold medicine too. Well, at midnight, R woke me up, saying that his forehead hurt really bad. His skin was very hot to my touch. I gave him some Tylenol and took him back up to bed. At 1:30am T came down and said that he couldn’t breathe through his nose. So, I took him upstairs, got him some cold medicine and tucked him back in bed. Then, at 5:00 am, R came back down, saying that his tummy hurt and that it felt “soft”. I was too tired to march back upstairs, so I scooted over and got him into bed with M and me. Finally, at 5:20, T came back down, not being able to breathe again (almost four hours to the minute that I gave him the 4-hour cold medicine!). I got T to climb in bed with the three of us. So, there I was, wide awake at 5:30 in the morning, trying to sleep in between three sick people. After about ten minutes of that, I realized that I wasn’t in the most healthy position in the world. R was asleep, but T was awake, so I got him up and settled in the living room watching “Winnie the Pooh.”

As I was unloading the dishwasher (it was as good as time as any!) R came in to watch TV too. I took R’s temperature and it was 102 degrees (I knew he felt hot!). I gave him some more Tylenol and got him out of his fleece jammies into some light cotton ones (I learned to do this from my Aunt Patty). Then, I got a load of laundry in the washer and folded the load that was in the dryer. T felt like breakfast – two packages of peaches n cream oatmeal – but R didn’t want any. I got R to drink some Capri Sun to keep him hydrated and went and showered and got dressed for my day. So, after being up most of the night, officially awake for two hours…unloading the dishwasher, doing a load of laundry, feeding one boy, playing nurse to two boys…and giving M a kiss to wake up, I left to go to work to tackle a four-hour meeting and whatever project was next. All in a morning’s work!

2 comments:

Aunt Patty said...

Oh, the joy of motherhood!! Especially when those little ones are sick! It certainly brings back memories. Sure hope they all recoop real soon, and hope you don't get it. Now, I'm wondering how the meeting and the rest of your day went. Love, Calif. Great Auntie P

CaliforniaGrammy said...

Assuming Mackinaw was well the Smith women are strong! Hope you're okay and don't get whatever bug is flying around! Four hour meetings - aren't they a drag!