Another Saturday night…

Ryan has a cold. It's one of those colds where snot just pours out of his nose. My poor little guy hates having his nose wiped and I've been inflicting this torture on him all weekend. So much, in fact, that his nose is red and chapped and I feel awful.

All Ryan wants to do is have Mommy carry him around and whimper. I feel for him, if I was feeling half as bad as he is, that's all I'd want to do too.

Which brings us to Saturday night… Ryan went to bed at about 7:30 p.m., just like every night. He slept through until 8 a.m. when I heard him crying.

It was a sad little cry. I peeked in his door and saw him still laying down, so I closed the door and let him sleep. About 15 minutes later, he started crying again. This time, when I went to check on him, he was sitting up, still crying.

"Good morning, buddy," I said to him as I walked in his room, and at about the same time, I saw that he was sitting in the middle of a pile of puke.

This would be the third time in his life that I have gone in his room and found him surrounded by vomit. I have no idea how fresh it was or anything. All I know is sometime between 7:30 p.m. and 8 a.m. Ryan puked.

He sleeps through just about anything and almost never wakes up during the night. I'm hoping he didn't get sick in the middle of the night, but one can never really tell. And I probably would be able to tell if I was one of those moms who checked on their kids at night before going to bed.
I went out to lunch on Friday with a friend of mine. During our conversation she talked about watching her kids sleep and how peaceful they are while sleeping.

That was when I started laughing so hard I almost chocked on my food.

After I put the kids to bed, there is no way I enter their rooms. They sleep in a fortress I wouldn't go in if you paid me because it possibly would wake them up. I will gladly live the rest of my life without seeing my kids asleep in their bed if it means they both will sleep peacefully through the night.

Better on the inside and out

Many of you may already know this, but it was news to me. In each of our intestines is a bacteria called acidophilus. This bacteria helps to keep our bowels, um, working properly, if you know what I mean. Anyway, because it's a bacteria, it is susceptible to an attack from some antibiotics. That is why many antibiotics claim diarrhea as a side effect.

Go ahead, snicker if you like. Of course this makes perfect sense now, but when Ryan was suffering from this side effect from taking a broad spectrum antibiotic, I was completely freaking out.

My poor little guy was not well at all. The fever, which hovered around 105 for 4 days, really knocked him out. By the time we took him to the doctor, his fever had decreased, but we found out he also had an ear infection.

As I side note, because I feel like I need to clear some things up, when Ryan woke in the middle of night last Thursday with a fever of 104, I did consider calling the doctor. But I gave him some Motrin and a bottle and he fell back to sleep, so I fell back to sleep. On Friday morning, I called the doctor at 8 a.m., and this exchange happened:

Me: Hi. My son has a fever. It's 104. He's cranky, not eating, and I guess I should bring him in, right?

Nurse: How old is he and does he have any other symptoms?

Me: He's 10-months-old and he has a runny nose.

Nurse: OK, I'll have the doctor give you a call.

45 minutes later:

Me: Thanks for calling me back. Ryan has a fever of 104, he's cranky, not eating and has a runny nose.

Doctor: Is his fever going down after you give him Motrin?

Me: Yes, but it never breaks.

Doctor: As long as his fever is responding to the Motrin, he should be fine.

Me: OK.

Friday night:

Me to doctor on call: Ryan's fever is still bad. Should I bring him to the hospital?

Doctor: If his fever doesn't respond to the Motrin, yes, bring him to the hospital.

Saturday evening:

Jon to the doctor on call: Ryan's fever is at 105. It's responding to Motrin, but after 4 hours it's shooting back up to 105. We just gave him another dose of Motrin.

Doctor: Give him a dose of Tylenol, and if his fever isn't down by 11 p.m., take him to the hospital. Otherwise, call the office at 7 a.m. and bring him in Sunday morning for an emergency appointment.

We made it to the doctor at 8:30 Sunday morning and that's why it took us so long to find out he had an ear infection, as well as roseola, and start him on antibiotic. Again, hindsight is 20/20. Looking back, he was exhibiting signs of ear pain, but we were so focused on the fever that we missed the ear pulling (and banging his head on the floor), which would have gotten him in for an appointment much sooner.

OK, back to the antibiotic dilemma. Doctor gives us this prescription for amoxicillin with clavulanate. He wanted to give Ryan something a little stronger to knock out the ear infection since he's had five in the last 10 months. He warned me that diarrhea was a side effect.

The first day of antibiotics, of course, he had some diarrhea. The next day, he broke out in a rash and the diarrhea worsened. On the fourth day, we took him off the antibiotic for 24 hours. During those 24 hours, his rash went away and his diarrhea stopped. We gave him one more dose and the diarrhea came back. The rash did not. So, we called the doctor and he prescribed azithromycin and Ryan is now right as rain. But not really right. That's how I found out about acidophilus. The antibiotic killed a lot of the good bacteria in my little guy's intestines and now we have to replace it by giving him acidophilus in capsule form, mixed with his food.

I really should have paid better attention in biology class.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, Ryan is feeling much better now. Sophia is another story. Today she woke up with a 104 degree fever and we are watching her closely to see if she develops an ear infection as well.

Oh, and did I mention Jon isn't feeling well and I'm feeling like I'm getting a cold. I'm sure we could have fought it off pretty quickly except that we thought it would be a good idea to go for a bike ride today. When we started the ride, it was a beautiful 75 degrees and sunny. We road 38 miles, the last 15 of which were road in a thunderstorm that included nickel sized hale.

What is our deal!?

Beach blanket bingo

It’s been quiet here at The Mommy Diaries because we’ve been on vacation. Actually, we are still technically on vacation, but right now at least we’re home. For the past couple of days we were at my sister’s house in Delaware, and a stone’s throw from Rehoboth beach. My sister invited us over for some fun in the sun and I’m so glad we made it.

We don’t get down there too often because it’s about a three hour car ride and any one who’s been reading this blog for a while knows that Sophia isn’t exactly a joy to travel with. For this trip, we brought in reinforcements. My brother came with us and helped keep Sophia busy. Apparently she and my little brother share the same taste in music because she spent most of the ride listening to his iPod with him. She told him that she loves Radiohead.

Yeah, we went to the beach, we swam in the pool and Sophia had a great time playing with her 2-year-old cousin, but the best part of the whole trip was hanging out with my brother and sister. It’s been a long time since the three of us just hung out and it was a lot of fun. The way you talk with friends is so different from the way you talk with family. I don’t know if it’s because you have so much history with each other or what, but it was great. There’s no real drama happening in any of our lives right now and we’re all pretty happy, so just sitting around and having a couple of drinks was the perfect way to spend some time away.










Update on Ryan: OK, so on Tuesday, right after we arrived in Delaware, the rash all over Ryan’s belly spread all over his body. The poor little guy looked awful. The roseola rash doesn’t look like chicken pox or hives; it’s more like giant red patches all over his skin. It was awful and we were getting worried about him. I know this might seem anti-productive, but we took him off the antibiotic for his ear infection for 24 hours. We did it because it’s penicillin-based and I’m allergic to it, so our thinking was that because the rash was getting worse maybe he was allergic to the medicine. Also, one of the side effects of the medicine is diarrhea, and he was indeed suffering the side effects. Frankly, I didn’t think he needed to deal with diarrhea at the same time.

Tuesday night, Ryan woke up screaming. He was, of all things, constipated. In the morning, the rash was practically gone. By the end of the day Wednesday, Ryan was 100% better. He was eating, laughing and playing, and far less clingy than he had been. This morning he woke up smiling for the first time in a week. We gave him a dose of the antibiotic this morning and we’re watching to see if the rash now comes back. Hopefully, it won’t.

I hate it when the kids get sick.

Finally feeling better

Now he has a rash. It’s roseola. That’s what caused the fever. That’s what has been making my little baby feel so badly for so many days. But the rash means he’s getting better. Thank goodness.

Yesterday, after his crying, which we determined to be his very first temper tantrum, Ryan’s fever went down and stayed down. It seems like Ryan gets every little virus and infection that’s going around. It’s exhausting, it’s annoying, and mostly it’s scary. I hope he’s going through all this for good reason, like once he starts kindergarten he’ll never get sick. That’s right; he’ll be the kid who never misses a day of school.

Ever.

On to some more pleasant news, during all of Ryan’s weekend drama, Sophia has become the sweetest, most well-behaved little girl. I’m not sure what’s spurred this crazy sweetness, but I like it and I hope it stays. Don’t get me wrong, she’s as crazy and wild as ever, just sweet at the same time.

Training notes: In case you’ve been wondering how my training has been going, it’s going very well. The road bike is tough to get used to. I fell twice the first day I road and today I fell again. It seems like I can’t make a sharp turn on the bike while clipped into the pedals. It’s embarrassing, but I can laugh about it. We are up to 24 miles, which did yesterday and today. That’s 48 miles in two days and my legs are beat. They aren’t sore, but they are extremely fatigued. 48 miles is a far cry from the 150 miles I’m supposed to do in September and it’s making me a little nervous about getting through 150 miles in two days.

Oh my God, make him stop crying

Sorry if I’ve been a little quiet these last couple of days, but Ryan woke up at 1 a.m. Friday with a fever of 104 that wouldn’t go down. I called the doctor Friday morning, Friday night and again on Saturday when they finally told me I should bring him in Sunday morning, which I did. They said he has a mild ear infection and he must have some kind of virus that is causing his high fever. It got as high as 105.5 several times over the weekend.

The poor little guy has been so uncomfortable. BUT, the thing is now, right now at this very moment, he has no fever at all. I guess the mad scientist (doctor recommended) concoction of Tylenol and Motrin did the trick. But he won’t stop crying.

Why won’t he stop crying?!

He won’t eat. He won’t drink. He doesn’t even stop crying when I hold him, which I’ve been doing pretty much constantly since Friday. I just now put him to bed, hoping he’s just tired, but he’s still crying.

It’s not an “I’m in pain” kind of cry. He doesn’t sound like he’s in distress, it’s just a cry. A sad, heart-wrenching cry that I’ve been listening to for what seems to be forever. It’s a cry that all you want to do is pick him up and fix whatever it is that is making him cry. But nothing I’m doing is making the cry stop.

Wait. Listen. I think he finally fell asleep.

Ah. Nope, he’s still whimpering.

At least he’s not crying.

Oh hey, now that I’ve gotten that all out, in case you missed it, take a little trip to Sunshine’s today and read my guest post about vacationing in my home state of Pennsylvania.

Great. I’m now off to bask in pleasant silence as I’m pretty sure Ryan finally fell back to sleep.

Wish me luck.