Sick, Sick, Sick

Whew, what a week it has been our house! After celebrating Valentine's Day last Saturday, we had a busy Sunday on tap. One of my best friends from middle school/high school was in town and we had planned to meet her & her boyfriend for an early lunch downtown, and then after the girls' naps we had a fifth birthday party to attend for Miss Grace. But first, we started the morning off with the girls' beloved french toast. But just minutes after finishing breaksfast, Hadley threw it all up. She had been acting totally fine aside from that, so we chalked it up to the fact that she had inhaled her breakfast. We offered her some applesauce about an hour later, and she eagerly ate it. So we quickly moved on with our day, got everyone dressed, and headed out for our lunch date. We didn't make it a mile out of our neighborhood before Hadley threw up all over herself in her carseat. :(  At this point, we weren't sure if the second round of vomiting was a sign this was a stomach bug or if it was just motion sickness on top of an already upset tummy. But we quickly made a beeline back home to get Hadley & the carseat cleaned up. Hadley was still acting completely fine, but I left Derek with the girls at home while I went to meet my friend.  I had a great afternoon out, and Derek said Hadley was in good spirits and even ate lunch and went down for her nap well.

I got home right as the girls were waking up from their naps. When Derek went to get Hadley out of her crib, he discovered she'd just thrown up yet again. Shelby and I scooted out the door to the birthday party and had a great time--and we were thankful for the excuse to keep Shelby away from the germs! Meanwhile back at home, Hadley ended up throwing up 7 more times in the 3.5 hours between waking up from nap and getting ready for bed that night. :(  It's not fun to have someone vomitting that much when they don't understand how to throw up in a bucket yet. ;)  Poor Derek had lots of laundry to do while we were gone! ;)

Grace's party was at a local kids art studio. We hadn't been there in quite a while,
and Shelby had the best time!

Playing peek-a-boo with Baby Ana :)

We were worried that Hadley wouldn't be able to sleep that night b/c she had been so sick all day & hadn't kept anything down, so I was especially thankful that Derek had the next day off (President's Day) in case things were bad again. But Hadley surprised us & slept like a champ that night, and we never heard a peep out of her until the next morning. She tried to eat breakfast but quickly threw it up again. She was just the most pitiful patient, she never whined or cried really, just so lethargic. During those two days, she barely walked anywhere (she never really left our arms) or talked at all--so unlike her. Again, we tried to keep the girls apart as much as possible, so the highlight of Hadley's second sick day was that Shelby & Derek got to have an afternoon out together! :)

Hadley never threw up again after Monday morning, but here we are almost a full week later and her appetite has still not returned. She had diarrhea on Tuesday & Wednesday, but thankfully Shelby had managed to stay in the clear. She was just still dealing with the remnants of whatever cold/virus she'd gotten the week before. Then the most pitiful/sweetest thing happened Friday morning. I had just gotten out of the shower & was getting dressed when Shelby poked her little head in the bathroom. I asked her if she'd done her chores yet (the new rule when she wakes up in the morning/after nap is that she is not allowed to leave her room until she's gone to the bathroom & made her bed), and she gave me a funny look and said she couldn't make her bed. When I asked her why, she smiled a little & said it was because there was throw up in her bed. The smile completely threw me off guard, so I thought she was joking. When I asked her if she really threw up, she said "Well, there's five little spots." But she was still smiling and acting like nothing was wrong with her, so I wasn't too worried about it. But sure enough, when we got to her room I immediately saw the damage. There was dried vomit in her bed, and then what appeared to be fresh vomit (sorry for being so graphic, ha!) on the floor from when she'd gotten up a few minutes prior. The dried vomit looked like it was from hours ago, so I asked her if she threw up in the middle of the night or what had happened. She told me she threw up in the middle of the night & cleaned it up and then went back to bed. I was like "What?!?" She then showed me all of the tissues in the trash can that she had used to attempt to clean up her vomit. I couldn't believe at the age of four she did that on her own & went back to sleep!!!! Mind you, she's probably only thrown up about 3 times in her life prior to this! Then later that afternoon when I was tucking her in for nap & reminding her where her bucket was in case she had to throw up again, I told her to call me if she got sick during her nap & I would come help her. She said "It's okay Mama, I'll be fine. I'll just throw up in my bucket & rinse it out myself & go back to sleep. I don't need you to come." I mean, seriously?! I'm thirty-one, and I still want my mom to come when I throw up!!!!! And the irony of it all is that when Shelby has a runny hose, she still calls for me to come bring her a tissue and wipe her nose 95% of the time. She can't handle a runny nose, but vomit in the middle of the night--no problem! ;)

Friday was a loooong day of mothering for me. Between Shelby coming down with the stomach bug & Hadley finally coming down with whatever cold/virus that Shelby had/still recovering from her stomach bug, it was a doozy of a day. Both girls had to have baths before 8am, the washer & dryer went non-stop until about 2pm, both girls calling out "runny nose" every 2.5 seconds b/c apparently they can't wipe their own noses (what age will that happen?!), and Hadley never wanted to be put down. We were all very happy to see Daddy walk through the door by the time 6:15 rolled around!!

Thankfully, today was Saturday which meant Derek was home with us (YAY!) and the weather was sunny & 76 degrees! We were able to keep our windows open all day & get some fresh air in our house! Shelby barely ate anything today and was still very tired, but we started to see some of her spunk come back! Hadley still refused to put down at all again today. My favorite is when I'm holding her and she says "Hold you please, I need Mama"....I'm like I'm currently holding you, what more do you want from me?!?! Can you tell it's been a long week? ;)

Here's to hoping we have a healthy week ahead of us!!! :)