Sick Babies

Mommy's been sick with a sinus infection for over a week now. It finally just feels like a cold which is a huge improvement. On Thursday night, while trying to fall asleep breathing through my mouth even after "nettying", tossing and turning and being awakened by someone else's snoring in my bed, putting in one ear plug to try to make things better, I was then awakened by another person snoring, this time outside my bedroom door. I get up to confirm it was Neko wheezing away. I must have startled him awake because next thing you know he was coughing up a storm in the classic croup styleand making that high pitched "stridor" sound they warn you about so I wake up Trav and blast the shower while putting a call into the doctor at 12:45. Between the steamy shower and walking outside in the cold air we finally got his breathing to settle and he went back to sleep. On Friday we went to the doc and she confirmed croup and prescribed prednisone and also diagnosed an ear infection (and teething). She gave another scrip for amox but said we didn't necessarily need to fill it if he seemed to be handling it well, which he was. Friday night was a rough one. First, we had to cancel our evening plans to bring the kids to my parents' house and go to Trav's Jiu Jitsu Christmas Party. Bummer. We NEVER go out. But between my feeling like crap and Neko's being sick, it was the best bet. Chinese food and Elf were our alternate plans. We went to bed around ten and then by 11:30 Neko was up, rebinked, up, rebinked, up, screaming his head off, holy cow!!! Now the tricky thing is that he's been on and off screaming his head off in the night for awhile now. Sometimes we think it's just his "pattern" but now I begin to wonder how long his ear has been infected and if it's been teething (Keller never really "teethed"--he just got cranky so we don't really know what teething looks and sounds like...) But anyway. Eventually, Trav got him to calm down and slept with him on his chest on the couch and I got a nice little stretch of uninterrupted sleep (4-5 hours? May not sound like much but between being sick and awake because of that and then add a sick baby, not much sleep going on...) So by mid-day Saturday, Keller was getting a raspy voice and his croupy cough reared it's head during nap. Lovely. Saturday night, 12:30, Travis on the couch with Neko again, Keller begins wheezing so loudly from his crib. Stridor again. In the shower with him, sounds horrible, call the doc, go outside for a few, inside, still no good, thinking about ER, doc calls back and is calm and seems to think it's just standard croup symptoms, gives us the go-ahead to give him Neko's Prednisone and by the end of our call, Keller is breathing better. What a scary thing though. Luckily he was a little chatty as he started feeling a little better. By the time all was said and done he was thinking we were going to "play toys" but alas, he got one more story and song, some medicine, a "cuemidifier" and put to bed. Sheesh! Sunday night, Neko's up again with "the screams"...is it his ear? is it his teeth? The Hyland's Teething Tablets seemed to do the trick the first time he was up. But 2 hours later when he was up again, not so much. Nor did walking the floors, swaddling, being held...I couldn't even sit down to hold him. Finally, I gave him some Motrin and within 10 minutes he was out. What do you guys do when you have/had a baby screaming his/her head off in the night? Do you assume teething? Earache? I just don't know. I guess maybe I should call the doc again tomorrow to see if I should fill the scrip she gave me "just in case"---I just don't want to give him Amox if he's just teething...ugh! Kids!! Luckily they're both in good spirits during the day (well, maybe the bigger one is a bit "irritable" to be nice...) But better now than the weekend. We also missed my cousin's Christmas party on Saturday which was sad because she had arranged the firetruck Santa to come to the house and had already set up the gifts for the boys to be given to them:( Keller would have loved that, but, maybe next year...

So that's what we've been up to around here for the last week. Ahhh, lovely germs. 'Tis the season!