Sick of Being Sick

     I'm getting so excited for summer for a lot of reasons of course, but right now I can't wait until my kids are not constantly sick!

     This poor little dude was pretty much comatose all weekend, which meant we got lots of snuggles:

     I think he's on the way up, but he's still got a fever and he's not quite himself yet. At least he's dang cute. I mean seriously? Look at his adorable chub. 

     I can't get over it.

     (Did you get a chance to tune in to General Conference? It was amazing! Catch what you missed here!)

Sickie-Nathan

It's funny how kids can be acting totally normal one minute, and the next throwing up.

A few weeks ago we were having a normal day. I made play dough with the kids, and they were having tons of fun making various things. Ellie helped Nathan make this hand print, and I think this picture captures their attitudes about it perfectly. Nathan was intrigued by it, and Ellie was a proud big sister. 

Then all of a sudden, Nathan threw up out of nowhere... It was strange. But "don't worry about the play dough, Mom! I moved it out of the way!" -Ellie

So I moved him to the couch with a bowl so he could rest and tell me if he needed to throw up again.

Ellie went into "Mommy mode" and started speaking to him in the funniest baby voice. She ran to get stories to read to him, and kept saying "I'll stay right here, Nathan, so you know where I am if you need to throw up." Nathan was loving the extra attention from his big sister.

While the little guy was sick we spend lots of time doing puzzles,

reading stories,

and neglecting chores... As you can tell by the laundry in this picture. Yikes!

Sick Weekend

Ellie developed kind of a bark-y cough last week, and on Thursday night Nathan woke up around midnight coughing and barely able to breathe. He was wheezing like crazy, and it's safe to say I have now heard what we learned in nursing school to be called "respiratory stridor." Wow, that wasn't fun. But we eventually got him calmed down enough to go back to bed with the baby monitor hooked up so we could hear him really well.

I got sick on Friday, and Sam on Saturday.

After that, this is pretty much what our weekend consisted of. There just isn't photo evidence of Ellie and me. :)

Other activities not pictured: drinking Powerade and Sprite, throwing up, eating toast, and watching movies. 

There was lots of sitting on the couch snuggling.

At one point I was rocking Nathan upstairs and Ellie was downstairs. She came up and told me to come down. I told her it would be a minute because I was rocking Nathan, but she said, "No Mom, come downstairs right now. I did my sick thing." I went downstairs and sure enough, there was a pile of throw up waiting for me. I guess she didn't know what it was called - that made me laugh.

Though it wasn't fun to have the house pile up in messes or to be sick, I enjoyed the time we spent together as a family doing things we don't normally do. 

Mostly I'm grateful that we are all feeling better with the exception of a few lingering coughs.

No Strep!

     Good news! We don't have strep - just some nasty-looking throats. At the doctor yesterday after they ruled out strep, they did some blood tests (looking for mono, checking for white blood cell counts, etc.) that all came back normal. When the doctor came back in, he told us everything looked normal, that it was probably a viral thing, and that we should be better by the beginning of next week. Then he off-handedly asked us if we had been camping or around mosquitoes lately. We said no, and he said "Ok, good. Because if you had, we might be looking at a local case of West Nile." Wow, thank you. How comforting.

     Ellie was really wound up for some reason. She wasn't being naughty, she was just hyper. I think she had fun. Except she kept asking the doctor for a shot.... I'm thinking she doesn't remember what they feel like.
   

She wanted to sit with me the entire time. I'm just glad she didn't plummet off the table and get a concussion. Don't mind me. I wasn't feeling well, alright?

Sam got to wrestle the kids while the nurse took my blood. Lucky him.

     All in all, I'm glad that trip to the doctor's office is over. I'm glad we don't have strep, and especially glad we don't have West Nile.

Love,

Sickies

     Sam and I have been sick for the past few days. Sore throat, chills, fever, exhaustion... You know, all the fun stuff. 

     After looking at our throats last night, I think we both have strep. So we are going to the doctor this afternoon to see if that is the case.

     It's hard to still have to be the parent when you're feeling sick. (At least the kids don't have what we have! Nathan has an ear infection, but he's taking antibiotics so that should be gone soon.) Sam was cold on Tuesday night, and while I was getting the kids in the bath he came in like this. I couldn't stop laughing, and apparently the kids couldn't stop staring.

     Poor Sam had a really busy day at work today, and he had to go back today to get some things done. He's awesome.

     Here's to hoping we feel better soon, and especially that the kids don't get it!

Love,