Can I Have That, Bro?

Thaddeus, Nathan and I have been a little sick for almost a week now and have had a lot of congestion and a little bit of a sore throat. Fortunately Callia has escaped it so far, but I fear not for much longer! This morning when I was putting the two of them in the car to take Callia to preschool, Callia was already in her seat, waiting to be buckled, I finished buckling Thad and looked down in my bags for something. When I looked up I saw her pick a booger out of his nose, and as I began to say "Don't pick...", her finger shot into her mouth! So yes, I did switch what I was going to say to "Don't eat your brother's boogers"!

Later, when I told Nathan about it he of course laughed and said that when he had talked to her before about eating her own boogers she said "I just like the way they taste". To reveal something embarrassing about myself as a child around preschool age, I remember thinking that, too! I can't remember how old I was when I changed my mind, but I'm sure Callia won't always feel like that, either!

I don't think I would have ever even considered eating someone else's, though. Maybe this morning's incident says something about how close she feels to her brother. Hopefully its that and not an indicator of how much discretion she is going to end up with!

Feeling Better

Callia is feeling much better. She woke up Friday morning feeling better, and did not throw up. She was talking up a storm like her usual self, which was a good sign. At first she was ready to get out of the house and talked about all the places she wanted to go, but when she got up off the couch to get dressed and walked up to her room, she changed her mind. She said she was dizzy and her head hurt. She didn't even want to go later on when she had the opportunity to go to lunch with MeMaw, which she hasn't been able to do in a couple of weeks. Mom did come here to eat, though, and while she was here Callia went up to go to the bathroom and felt nauseated while she was up there. Poor baby. :( That night I did take her out to go to Tropical Smoothie and she rode in the shopping cart while I picked her up some rice milk and other snacks at the grocery store. We were gone about an hour, and Thad and Nathan stayed home. It was very nice to get out of the house with her, and see her appreciating it. She is sipping rice milk even now. Not being able to drink milk or eat cheese because of her sensitive stomach has made her crave it, and she has been enjoying the rice milk a lot. She is still a little weak but I think totally over the sickness.

This afternoon she goes in to the doctor for her preschool checkup and most likely some vaccinations. The appointment was originally for last Tuesday but she was too sick to go.

I think I will be asking the doctor if we can get another prescription for Thad's reflux medication (Zantac). He had run out and hasn't had it for about a month now. He hadn't been throwing up (except baby food while he was sick), but now he is not sleeping unless he is with me, which is exactly what was happening when he was hurting from the reflux, and it seems like he is totally over being sick. This morning he spit up breast milk just like he used to do. Hopefully he will start sleeping better again. The only way Thad will sleep at all is in bed with us, believe me, I've spent a lot of time trying to lay him down in his bed. Nathan and I have been sleeping very poorly and last night he slept on the couch because of how crowded the bed has been. I talked to him on the phone this morning and he said it was the best he has slept in a long time and he feels great! I feel like I hardly slept at all, even though it wasn't so crowded without Nathan. I missed Nathan and Thad kept waking up fussing over and over all night.

It makes me think of how hard it would be to have a baby who was constantly plagued with major health problems. Thad has had a couple of issues but they are minor. I have heard of things that made babies constantly cry in pain. Wouldn't that be heartbreaking?

Callias Dream

Callia told me about a dream that she had last night. I was sitting here at the computer as she told me about it so I opened this window and typed it as she spoke:

"I had a nice dream in the middle of the night. There were people and snow and and I had gloves and they were gray with pink and I had my jacket that had pink and gray on it too and there was snow and I was having fun in the snow in my dream! And then next to the snow there was a cornfield and I was in a wagon. Pretty neat, uh? I rided a wagon through the cornfield. And there were these crazy bouncy seats that had seat belts and I even rided them, and it started all by itself."

Still Sick

Poor Callia is still sick. The past few days she has been begging for food and then throwing it up when I give it to her. Yesterday she would throw up and immediately ask for something, suggesting things like McDonalds. Its hard to tell her no when I know she is bound to feel like she is literally starving. I was spending the whole day fixing her food just for her to throw it up, trying things like applesauce, crackers, vitamin water, banana, oatmeal (that was one she specifically asked for) and other stuff I thought would be easy to keep down.

Today, at the advice of the nurse I have taken and different strategy and have not been allowing Callia to eat even though she is asking for food. Every thirty minutes to an hour I'll give her something to eat or drink, about a quarter cup. The nurse said even a teaspoon of water every thirty minutes would be good but I'm pushing it because she is so hungry. Thank God she hasn't been throwing anything up that way. I was starting to get very worried about her. I am hopeful that she will begin to feel less hungry over time if I keep giving her little bits of stuff. Before I was giving her a little more at a time because she was asking for it, but these little bits are staying down better. She cried this morning when I wouldn't give her more kix. She asked for sausage this afternoon. I've been setting the timer so she can hear it go off when it is time for her to have something else to eat, and that comforts her, probably because she is otherwise afraid I'm going to forget to feed her, and she knows it is coming.

Thaddeus has been fairly miserable as well, but he has been keeping down breast milk. I have not been feeding him anything else for fear he would throw it up and the milk would come up with it. I have also been feeding him more frequently so he gets smaller amounts. Last night he would not sleep in his own bed. We fed him a little rice cereal mixed with milk and he gobbled that up but started pushing it away long before he ate a full meal. It was maybe a quarter of the size of his normal meal. Then when he refused to let me lay him down in his crib we allowed him to stay up later, and he was pretty cheery in his swing playing with toys. I tried putting him to bed again and once again he would not sleep. Nathan tried feeding him some applesauce but he was so upset when we put him in the chair we didn't even try. He just wanted to be held and nurse. So we just turned off our movie and went to bed with him in bed with us, but I could not sleep because Thad was kicking and whining and would not stop nursing on and on and on. We'd drift off and he'd wake up again very soon after. This went on until about 3am when I tried again to put him in his bed and when he woke up again I actually allowed him to cry himself to sleep which didn't take more than a minute because he was so tired. But he woke up again a couple minutes later. So Nathan went and slept on the couch (I'm sure he slept much better there, I was beginning to think it would be nice if I could but it wouldn't have helped since Thad needed to be with me). I did sleep a little better with a little extra room. Thad kicked for about an hour and then slept reasonably well after that. What a miserable night. Then in the morning Callia woke up throwing up once again.

Fortunately I haven't gotten sick yet, and hopefully I can escape without getting this. I don't see how it could be possible, but maybe God is planning on being nice to me.

Two Sickies

Well, both of my kids are sick throwing up. Callia has been sick since Sunday and Thaddeus since yesterday, although both of them waited until the second day to start throwing up. So today both of them are throwing up. Thad has had reflux up until recently so I'm used to him spitting up some milk here and there but this is nothing like that. This morning when I went to get him out of his crib he was laying in last night's baby food meal of rice cereal and squash. It was all over his clothes, down his arms, in his hair, spread out all over the sheet, and covering half of his lamby stuffed animal. And it smelled terrible. Once I cleaned him up from that, I allowed him to breast feed and in the middle of that he threw it all back up onto both of us and my bed. Then thirty minutes after that Callia woke up and threw up immediately. Fortunately she does a good job getting it into the bucket I have given to her, although she did inform me she threw up on her sheets last night and just rolled over and slept on a different part of the bed. "Its dry now", she said. So that is three sets of sheets that I had to wash this morning. Not the best start. She was supposed to go to preschool today and get her vaccinations this afternoon but that is not going to happen.