The Progression of a Tired Mother...

This is how I felt yesterday after one restless night of sleep (Friday) and one night of little to no sleep (Saturday)...

And maybe I looked a bit like this...

And that wasn't too terribly bad. But then last night hit. Another night of little to no sleep. Followed by a morning where I had to go to work. Which means that this is what I looked like getting up out of bed...

And here's what I looked like at work today...

Too bad that I don't actually drink coffee. I think that it might have helped me today. The good news I left work at lunch today, which is why there is a post during the middle of the afternoon. Hopefully I'm about to fall into a nice, deep sleep where I get lots and lots of rest...here's to hoping!

Oh, what's that? You want to know why I'm not sleeping. Hmmm...let me sum it up for you...I think that I can do it in 5 words or less. Jax has Thrush. Yep, I managed it in only 3 words - go me! I'll write more about it later...finding images was hard enough...wish me luck sleeping!!

source for images (1, 2, 3, and 4)

These are the Faces that I've Missed!

Oh, man.  It is good to see this again...


I mean, who wouldn't just want to eat that up?!?!  Not only is he cute...but he's in a good mood...because he FINALLY feels better!  No, I didn't actually catch any smiles with my camera, but trust me - they were there. This was the closest that I got to an actual smile...


Yea!

Whew!  What a week last week was...wait, who am I kidding?  What a lousy last THREE weeks that we've been dealing with/fighting these blasted ear infections.  After 4 doctor's visits, two oral antibiotics and three shots of injectable antibiotics...we're finally feeling better.  His fever broke on Friday afternoon/evening and we haven't seen it since then.  We did NOT have to go and see an ENT...but that might be the first item of action the next time a little ear infection hits since we now know how "resistant" he (his body) is to them! 

I was just happy to have my little man back...drool and all!

A Quick Update on Our Household

So...the double ear infection that cleared up a bit and left only one ear still slightly infected quickly escalated into another double ear infection on Wednesday.  Yep, you read that right.  We're right back where we started.  Except that now it's worse...they're both red, swollen and VERY infected. 

Since this is an ongoing ear infection that's on it's third week now, Jax had no other options but to take the antibiotic shots, Rocephin.  (Forgive the spelling, I sounded it out and it's probably all wrong!)  Poor little guy.  He "gets" to take a shot everyday for three days straight and then we meet with the doctor again on the last day to see how he's responding. 

So far he's not responding well.  His fever is still dangerously close to the 103 degree mark, and he sleeps alot during the day/evening.  In fact, he pretty much only wakes up to eat and whine for a bit (not really crying) before going back to sleep.  His favorite place to sleep?  On Mommy.  So he and I have spent a lot of quality time together in my rocking recliner the last day or so. 

They tell me that his fever should break for good today after his second shot...I'm hopeful, but not holding my breath at this point.  In fact, I've almost resigned myself to the probability that on Friday his ears won't be any better and we'll be making an appointment with an ENT as soon as we can to get some tubes put in his ears.  I hate to put him through more, but at this point, I want to get him some relief too and tubes in his ears is the quickest route to that end. 

I don't want to pick up my child that's burning up with fever.  I don't want him to sleep so much and not play and smile at us anymore (we're the mean people that keep taking him to that place where he gets the shots after all!).  I don't want him to hold onto my finger with his little hand that's hot like a coal.  I don't want to see that glassy, fever-eyed look on his face anymore.  And I don't want him screaming at night anymore because it hurts his ears to lay down. 

There's a lot of things that I don't want.  What I DO want?  For my child to be better.  Whatever it takes.  If that's tubes, or shots, or a trip to the ER, then that's what it is.  I just want him to be well again.

Oh, and I'd like to be able to keep my job.  I've missed a lot of work with this little guy so far...my luck can only hold out so far, you know?  Here's to hoping! 

1 + 2 + 5 = 1

Do you like my math skills?  I excelled in my math classes when I was younger, I promise...and I worked in accounting for a few years...shocking, huh?!?!  Let me break down my little equation above so that it makes sense to more people than just me...

1 Ear Infection (still...this is the third week!) + 2 (or possibly 3) Sleep Deprived People + 5 Medications
1 VERY CRANKY 6 mo old!!

Yep, you read that right.  If you remember we went to the doctor the week before last and found out that the poor little guy had not one full blown ear infection, but another just below danger territory.  So we went on antibiotics and treated it as best we could.  It seemed to go away and clear up, except for some strange almost flourescent green eye booger things coming out of BOTH of his eyes.  I was slightly worried about that, but since it looked like the goopey stuff that starts coming out right before you get pink eye, and we already had medicine for that from when we had it a few months ago, I just treated that too and went ahead about my business.

And then he turned 6 months old over the weekend, which means that we had our 6 month check-up yesterday.  Ironically, on Saturday night he was up screaming for a few hours, and I wondered if maybe it was his ear again.  But he wasn't running any fever and he seemed very happy the next morning, so we slept in and took it easy...especially knowing that I had a doctor's appt for the next day. 

The irony part comes in when we're at the doctor's office and the check-up is going well, until she grabs the little ear-looker-thingy.  Yes, that's an official medical term - look it up!  She looks in his right ear first, which was the one that wasn't quite as badly infected and made good noises.  Then she moved on to the left side...and the good noises stopped abruptly. 

Yep, we're still infected. 

Or maybe not all the way infected, but according to the doctor "it should look better than it does."  Which doesn't really tell me anything.  So we're on antibiotics again...along with a few other things.  This is where the 5 in the equation comes in...

We're taking Cefadrin for the ear infection.  We're dosing his eyes twice a day with Vigamox to stave off a pink eye infection because his secondary tear ducts aren't fully developed yet and that's what keeps leaking the freaky-looking mucus stuff.  That's also a technical medical term.  Because the Cefadrin gives him really bad diarrhea/upset stomach we're also taking Florastor to offset that symptom.  And just to make the party more fun, the doctor wants us to keep up the steroid treatment for his cough/rattle for the next 30 days.  The good news is that we can drop down to just doing the breathing treatments once a day of the steroid Budesidine. 

Yes, if any of my readers are actual medical people, I will apologize for butchering the spelling of any/all medicines.  You know what I'm talking about, it's close enough.  Remember...I'm sleep deprived.  I won't apologize for the vast amount of medical technical terms that I used...LOL!

Oh, and just to make the party MORE fun...he got 5 shots yesterday.  And he's been running a fever since midnight of at least 102 degrees.  So we're at home today...bunkered down and trying to weather the worst of the storm.  The good news is that he's sleeping alot...two hours and counting right now.  So the laundry's getting done, the kitchen got cleaned and the living room floor got vaccummed.  At least something productive has come out of this sick day!  I hope that your day is better than mine...mine can only get better from here.

Sick...Again...le sigh...

Yeah, this is not so much fun.  Just in case you were wondering.  I'll have to tell this one to you short and sweet as I'm literally running on empty as I type...

The last time I slept really good?  Last Thursday...

Symptoms of said sick child?  Cough, mucus, rattle in the chest...and then today, fever

Number of trips to the doctor?  One

Number of calls to the nurse to make sure that I'm putting the right medicine in the nebulizer in the past week?  I really am too embarrassed to admit...see the answer to the first question though, that might shed some light on why there might have been more than one call...

Official diagnosis?  Full blown ear infection on the right side, and building up to a good one in the left ear.

sigh...

So I'm tired.  He's tired.  He's cranky and fussy, which in turn makes me cranky and fussy.  I would really like to inject the antibiotic straight into his bloodstream or ear canal (whichever would be the most effective) to get him well and sleeping again.  And back in day care.  LOL! 

Then I hear how whiny I sound.  An ear infection?  That's nothing to be so upset over.  Yes, he's been sick a lot in the past three months, but we ARE in the cold/flu season and we've so far managed to avoid bigger, nastier diseases and ailments.  By that line of reasoning, I should be thankful that he's got an ear infection only and that it's not something worse. 

And then he starts fussing again and it's really hard to say "thank you"...hopefully he'll be better tomorrow or the next day and I'll be back soon!

Whew!

I don’t know about you guys…but these holidays are kicking my butt! Of course, being sick for almost an entire MONTH will also make time warp faster than you can blink, huh? LOL!

I hope that you all had as good of a Thanksgiving as we did. We ate too much. Spent some time with family – no arguments, thank goodness! And we shopped. And shopped some more. Yes, I’m one of those crazy people that goes out on Black Friday every year…it’s tradition to do so now, whether I really need to go or not. And it’s become such our thing that Brent enjoys going with me and we usually don’t even start shopping for presents until then. The great news? We’re nearly through buying presents!

We knocked out all of our nieces/nephews this weekend, along with most of Tanner’s stuff…and we got a good start on Jenna. We need to work on hers a bit – remember, she’s the sweetie pie that asked for stuff for everyone else and nothing really for herself, so figuring out what Santa needs to bring her has been a bit trickier this year. Other than that, I need to pick up a few little things for Jax (the one person who doesn’t have ANY presents at our house right now!) and finish off Brent. I also need to figure out something to do for our parents.

Last, but not least, I need to figure out what to do about teachers this year. With a little one in the house again, I feel compelled to buy gifts for teachers again. I’m thinking about going the homemade route with them…maybe some cool coasters (did I ever post about those?)…some personalized note cards…and Christmas candy is ALWAYS a hit! Then again, wasn’t I just complaining about a lack of time??? So we’ll see…but I totally feel like I’m doing good on my Christmas shopping this year.

In other news, we’re all feeling much better. The doctor put Jax back on breathing treatments at his 4 month check-up last week (yep, that post is running behind too!), but they’re just twice a day so it’s much more manageable. His cough is almost gone, and the rattle in his chest is responding to the steroid treatment better every day. Brent is all better from his battle with strep, and we managed to keep it contained to just him – not really sure how we did that, other than we practically bought stock in Lysol! And my allergies are MUCH better this week…yep, we’re nearly back to normal. Knock on wood…

I’m going to try to be better about posting now…you know, now that we’re not all on death’s door…now that I might have an extra few minutes at night…now that I can think clearly without the fog of too-little-sleep and medicine-head dragging me down. We’ll see how that goes…for now, here’s some cuteness for you...he's discovered his feet!

Have a great Tuesday!

OK. Now It’s Just Comical!

Seriously. I can’t catch a break here people. Our house is STILL sick. Just when one of us starts feeling better, someone else comes down with something.  Let me illustrate for you:

Last week, Brent and I were sick with the crud during the first part of the week.

I felt better first, then Brent.

Immediately upon me uttering the words "I feel better today" Jax got sick and the doctor diagnosed him with croup/bronchiolitis.

We get all the way better, and Jax slowly improves on the breathing treatments.  He's not well, but he's not sickly-sick.

For the past two days, Jax has been really particular about his formula. Since he weighs in at nearly SIXTEEN pounds, you can probably tell that he’s a healthy eater, to put it nicely. We call him Chunk. Well, I guess the congestion and all has messed up his little tummy because the formula is suddenly not that good anymore. I mean, it’s good for the first 2-3 ounces and then no good anymore. Which means that instead of dropping a feeding as he gets older and starts eating rice cereal in the evenings, he’s now ADDING a feeding at night since he only drains one bottle during the night and gets picky for the rest of the night.

Bless his heart.

Then today…oh today. Today I got up and went to work. Today my son went to day care for the first time in a week. Today was supposed to be a good day.

But today, Brent woke up with a fever. And a sore throat.  Yep, he went to the VA and he’s got strep.

We really can’t catch a break…

And there’s really nothing else to do at this point except laugh. I’ve already used up all of my tears in the trial that was last week (taking care of a sick baby while you yourself are sick). So today…I laugh.

And pray.

Pray that I don’t get strep. Pray that Jax doesn’t get strep. Thank the good Lord that we weren’t planning on travelling for Thanksgiving anyway, because we’d be cancelling those plans right about now. And most of all, I pray that my husband gets better soon. I need help during the evenings and nights and he can’t give it with strep throat, you know?

So think some good thoughts for me. Send some positive energy my way, if you have some to spare. If you’re dealing with your own house of sickness, then go ahead and be selfish and keep it for yourself…Lord knows that I understand!  Maybe I'll stay well this time around and can at least keep you all entertained with blog posts...you know, you can laugh at my pain...because I'm sure to someone other than me this sort of has to be just a little bit funny.

Missing???

Well, hello there!  Yes, I've been missing in action...maybe you've noticed and worried about me?  Maybe you haven't...either way, we're alive.  But just barely.

Y'all, my house is sick.  My WHOLE house.  Is. SOOOOOO. Sick.

I have had it twice now, I think.  Brent's had it at least once.  Jax (the main instigator) is also on his second round, except this round is kicking his little butt.  This time he had to go see the doctor.  And get chest x-rays and a nebulizer came home with us. 

He's got croup. 

Uggghhh...just hearing that word gives me shivers. 

And he's running fever, so that means no day care. 

Do you know how hard it is to take care of a baby when he's sick and YOU'RE sick?!?!  It's no fun...

I'm exhausted.  Mentally, emotionally and physically.  Brent's in the same dark place.  We both look like we're on our way to a funeral half of the time...but maybe things are improving.  I hate to even type that for fear of jinxing myself.  But he's not running fever today, and I haven't given him anything for the fever since 1am this morning...so cross your fingers that he continues down this better path. 

We need to work full days so we don't lose our jobs.  We need sleep.  We all need time to heal and get well.  Maybe we need that the most.  I took two vitamins this morning...just in case.  LOL! 

I hope that your week is going better...see you soon...maybe.

Can We Spell Rough – R-U-F-F?

You know how sometimes you think to yourself how it might be nice if one of the kids got a little bit sick so that you could squeeze in a three-day weekend?  What’s that?  You mean to tell me that I’m the ONLY Mom that’s ever had that thought? 

Now, to clarify, I certainly don’t mean to say that I would wish illness on my kiddos.  Something small like a cold.  They run a little bit of a temperature – just enough to keep them out of school and sort of tired, but not high enough so that there would be something really wrong with them.  No, you’re right…no matter how I try to say it, it just sounds wrong.   Well, don’t worry about hating me…I got what I deserved these last two weekends!

First off, Jenna got sick.  To make a long story short, she complained about a “bug bite” early during the week before last and I blew it off and chalked it up to the typical drama that goes along with my eight year-old girl.  (She’s sort of a hypochondriac…)  Well, by Friday it had gotten red and was hot to the touch, her whole throat was swollen and the actual “bite spot” was leaking pus.  Yeah, say it with me…EEEEWWWW!  Double eeewww.  After a quick trip to the dr office on Friday afternoon, I had the sh*t literally scared out of me when the dr uttered these words: staph infection.  I took the dr with the severity that the situation called for and Jenna got a double shot (one in each leg) of a strong antibiotic.  We made an appt for the following morning, and were actually pre-admitted to our local hospital in case she worsened over the night.  Oh wait…I was supposed to be making this short, right?

We went back to the dr on Saturday.  Followed again by another appt on Sunday.  We started oral antibiotics and a steroid.  She improved, and it turned out to be an actual bug bite and not a staph infection at all.

But it made for a pretty crappy weekend. 

Then you know about my week of sleepless nights…

And on Thursday when we picked Jax up from day care, they were concerned about the goop in his left eye.  He wasn’t running any fever…or maybe it was low grade, he wouldn’t keep the pacifier/thermometer in his mouth long enough to truly register…but he was cranky and seemed out of sorts.  I also noticed that the left eye seemed red and swollen.  I called the after-hours clinic and made an appt for the first thing the next morning with our regular doctor. 

We showed up…after an ok night…and found out that he has pink eye.  Nice.  So I got my Friday off of work, but had a sick little man to take care of.  He really wasn’t too bad…but still.  And then Brent got sent home from work for the afternoon since his boss was worried about Brent also having pink eye (knowing how contagious) it can be and so we were both home early.  Which was nice. 

But by today?  I’m tired.  I’m ready to go back to work to get a break.  He’s cranky, he doesn’t feel good, but doesn’t really feel bad either.  And the sleeping?  Oh last night was SO much worse than he’s been for the last 5 nights or so…

Oh, and he’s got a bad diaper rash from the antibiotics giving him diarrhea…like his little butt is so raw that it’s bleeding every once in a while sort of bad.  And we’re only on day 3 of the 10-day cycle of antibiotics…

But on a less complain-y sounding note – our boy can ROLL!!!  Yep, you read that right – he’s mobile.  Day care told us either Wednesday or Thursday that he was rolling from back to front, but the little stinker waited until today to show us his cool trick.  But we’ll one-up the day care ladies…not only did he finally show us how he could roll from back to front, but he also pushed WAY up on his forearms…AND…rolled from front to back.  Of course, I don’t really think that he meant to do that last trick since he looked as shocked as we did! 

But now that he’s done it once, it’s only a matter of time before he’s doing it all the time…which means that he’s mobile.  And no, I have no pictures of the great event since we were doing a bit of nakey-nakey time when he did this to try and treat the above-mentioned diaper rash.  Oh well, maybe next time I’ll take pictures and we’ll just let it be our secret that those pictures aren’t really the real first roll over pictures.

You know, sort of like when you dress your kids up in the outfit that they wore the first day of school two weeks after school started because you forgot your camera that day…since no one but you will ever know, right?  Note to the masses: that trick only works until the kids get old enough to tell on you…and they WILL rat you out.  Trust me on this!

So here’s to long weekends and going back to work on Monday mornings…I’ve never been so glad to see Sunday night!

Guys Don't Really Understand

Maybe you haven’t noticed, but posting has been “light” this week. That’s because our house isn’t sleeping all that much. Little man has a cold, and at three months old, there’s just not much that you can do to help them breathe better. Especially while eating…


So in case you’re behind, I thought that I’d recap the “score” like a football game since I live in Texas, and let’s face it – Texans live, sleep, eat and breathe football during this time of year…

Jaxon – 1,364,852   versus   Brent/Sandy – 14

Yeah, it’s pathetic, I know. We’re trying…we’re really trying…but nothing is working. Humidifier? Got it – but it’s not very effective since his “room” isn’t really a room. Vicks Baby Rub – been there and done that…makes it worse. Vicks plug-in to breathe better night-lite…works great…on us! Doesn’t seem to help him any. Sleeping upright or elevated? Check. Booger-sucker-thingy? Got two or three of them in action. You name it, we’re trying it…and still, there’s not much sleep to be had in our household.

But last night we decided that we would “divide and conquer” so to speak. I don’t like not sleeping with Brent, but at this point we are both running on fumes and need some sleep. So when Jax started up last night around 11:30pm, he and I vacated the bedroom so that Brent could get some sleep. Then Brent set his alarm for 3am to swap with me. We both got at least 3 hours of sleep…and that might be a record for both of us this week…

Around 1:30am this morning, I noticed that some of the congestion was actually coming out in the booger-sucker-thingy this time (what a relief!) and that it was green. That was somewhat alarming, as that means you’ve got an infection for an adult. So you know that I called the doctor’s office first thing this morning to check and make sure that I didn’t need to bring him in. They assured me that without fever or wheezing, there was really no need for alarm…even if I was worried about that infection settling in his little ears over the weekend…and we all know how much fun ear infections in infants are! Apparently it’s normal for babies’ snot to be green…according to the nurse anyway.

I was relieved and went about my morning. But guys? They just don’t really get it, or understand it all, I think. Case in point: I met Brent for a “lunch date” today (Day 6 of our Intimacy Challenge called for a date, IMO) and this was sort of how our conversation went:
Me: So I called the doctor’s office and they assured me that we’re doing all that we can, but there’s really nothing that they can do.

Brent: Does that mean that they don’t want to see him?

Me: Yes, that’s what that means. She said that we were doing everything already and without fever or wheezing there really wasn’t anything else to worry about.

Brent: But did you tell her about the green snot?

Me: (with some impatience entering my voice) Yes, honey. I did. She still said it was ok. I went on to explain why green snot is ok with infants…but won’t bore you all with the details.

Brent: Sooo…there’s not any medicine that they want to give him?

Me: Well…she did say that we could give him cold medicine, but he’s really too young. She said that in infants, the medicine doesn’t really provide the good benefits that it does in older people and the side effects are drastically increased in infants, which makes it unadvisable to give to them.

I was pretty sure that this should have been the end of the discussion, don’t you think? Apparently not…

Brent: Well, what are the side effects?

Me: (certain that I’d heard wrong) Huh?

Brent: Did you ask what the side effects are?

Me: Why would I ask what the side effects are? She said that they were risky and drastically worse than when given to adults…(really not seeing the point)

Brent: Yeah, but the major side effect of cold medicine is falling asleep. (Pauses expectantly) Isn’t that what we want?

Me: Babe!

Brent: I mean, if he sleeps for two days straight, wouldn’t that be a nice change of pace???

I started to stop talking at this point…

Brent: So I would have asked what the side effects are. Because if sleeping is the only thing, then I’m all for giving him the medicine.

Me: What if another side effect is anal leakage?

Brent: He’s already got anal leakage…that’s why he wears diapers!

I just looked at him – too shocked to continue.

Brent: Think about it, Sandy. Our parents gave us all kinds of crap back before someone told them that they weren’t supposed to. And we turned out ok. I know that my Dad used to dose me up with Nyquil. And I’m sure that I slept better for it. Don’t you think that would help?

Me: (trying to steer the conversation back into control) Well, no I don’t think that would be ok. She did mention that we could use Saline drops on him and that might help us get more of his congestion actually out when we booger-sucker him.

Brent: What are Saline drops?

Me: I think it’s like salt water. Helps dry out the congestion and loosen up the crusty boogers to come out.

Brent: Does it go in their eyes???

Me: No, babe. It goes up their nose.

Brent: Oh he’s gonna LOVE that. (Sarcastic is his middle name…) Wait a minute…you’re telling me that we can’t give him any medication, because it might have bad side effects, but that it’s ok to squirt salt water up his nose???

I knew that I should have stopped the conversation earlier. Don’t worry. We will NOT be administering any type of cold medicine to Jax this weekend, no matter how tired we get. I promise.

I hope that you have a good weekend…I’m going to try to get the new design for this blog finished up this weekend. I’m SO close…don’t worry, I’ll let you know when it’s all ready so that you can click out of your Reader and actually see it!

Oh, and if you’ve got any further suggestions for us to try with Jax’s cold…we’d REALLY LOVE to hear from you!!!