Project 365 - Mar 22nd to Apr 4th

Once again, I haven't got a pic per day, but given what's been going on, I'm lucky to have gotten anything. I promise I'll pick up the slack.

You know how some kids grab grapes and cookies and crackers out of the cart? Not my kid...he rips hunks off the romaine lettuce to munch on.

This crazy snowstorm kept drifting in and out while I did bus duty. One minute it would be snowing and the next it was so sunny, I wished I had my sunglasses.

Notice the look of disdain and desperation on Mischief's face.

Mmmm....death by pepperoni.

More fun in the playhouse.

Hey, girls....remember this guy?

Rat tail! Oh yeah! Jordan Knight was hot baby!

Thanks to a team effort on the part of Aunt Ruby and mom and Mike, Isabel has her now-beloved doll house. She spends hours happily playing with this thing.

A photo of Orin's first steps.

Wrestling after bath!

Helpin' Mama at work.

Poor tired and sick wee baby.

Some video footage to accompany the photos:

Still playing catch up.

The only thing that would REALLY deter me from having a third kid is what we are dealing with right now - the CONSTANT barrage of viruses and things when they start daycare/school. We just can't seem to keep up. We all had that TERRIBLE respiratory virus at the end of February/beginning of March...that took each of us about a week (overlapping) to get over.
Late the week before last, just as I was marveling at our entire family being well for a whole week, we all, again in succession, got fevers and various degrees of congestion/sore throat. I am the last one recovering from that and, after being told repeatedly on Thursday how terrible I looked and sounded (despite feeling 1000x better than I did with the last virus, I was feeling on the mend Friday morning.
Isabel projectile vomited at 2am Friday. We cleaned it up and decided that the most sensible thing was to have O go to daycare and me go to work in the morning since I am still #1 when it comes to his care (it comes with the territory when you are breastfeeding) and we wanted to minimize the chances of him getting it, given how serious it could be for him.
Around 7:20am, the call that I half expected and definitely dreaded came. Daycare is closed because her son has the same thing. We know no one locally who doesn't work, so I was now needed to care for Orin. A little too late to call our regular supply teachers, I took him to work in order to tie up loose ends and see if we could get someone off the list. I stayed for period one and Orin was as good as gold (and received no shortage of attention).
Orin fell asleep in the car, so I figured that we'd come home so I could get a few things, eat some breakfast (~10am...so hungry) and he could sleep in the car, thus avoiding infection. Well, when Dave and I talked about it, Isabel seemed fine at this point, we thought we'd done a good job of containing it (used rubber gloves, washed extensively and tried to keep all dirty laundry contained to garbage bags). We decided that so long as we kept them apart physically, we should be alright, so Orin and I stayed home for the day.
At 1:30am, Orin projectile vomited four times. We cleaned up, spent an hour trying to get water into him slowly and monitoring him closely (and packing an overnight bag just in case we needed to take him to the hospital). We thought it was safe to head back to bed around 2:45. While we were trying to get Orin back to bed, something crazy happened with the power (Dave figures it was as a result of a blown transformer or a lightning strike) and it went out. NB Power said they wouldn't get to it until sometime in the day. PERFECT! Beside the regular annoyances from a power outage, no power while on a well means no water pressure, which means no flushing of toilets and no laundry and no handwashing. Did I mention that my tummy was now churning and cramping?
The ending to this story is good though. We've all made it so far without any further throwing up. The power came on at 9am, so laundry is running again. And most importantly, Orin kept himself hydrated and seems just fine after challenging one of the more serious "minor" things that can happen to him.
Here's to an uneventful weekend.

*clang* Bring Out Your Dead!

If someone had told me to paint the red X on the door sometime early two weeks ago, I'd have been a little better prepared for what we just battled. As it was, we made it out by the skin of our teeth, but we are happy just to have made it. Let me break it down for you.

Tuesday Feb 22 - Daycare provider calls early in the AM to say she is closed due to illness.

Wednesday Feb 23 - Same call. Kids both run low-grade fevers for the better part of the day, but are in good spirits.

Thursday Feb 24 - Daycare is still closed. Isabel wakes up a miserable, whiny mess. She has a really high fever and sore legs, won't eat and is a shivering, confused mess on multiple occasions throughout the day. Orin is still fine.

Friday Feb 25 - Orin's turn. The boy sleeps quite literally half the day. He is still drinking enough water, but isn't eating. He won't sleep on his own (which is usually not a problem) and quite literally sleeps on/snuggled with one of us for the duration of his illness both day and night. Still no daycare.

Saturday Feb 26 - Isabel seems to have improved. She has only a low-grade fever and is in slightly better spirits today. We are hoping this is the end. Oh, how hopeful we were. Orin is still so sick...poor guy.

Sunday Feb 27 - Both children are once again, extremely ill.

Monday Feb 28 - Both children are ill. Isabel is worse than Orin.

Tuesday Mar 1 - Orin is improved enough that I send him to daycare. Isabel is STILL spiking fevers of 103 at random, so I take her to the doctor, who says that it looks like it is still just viral and we should just try to tough it out. Tiresa is starting to get ill....low-grade fever, runny nose and slight cough. By the end of the day, her fever is spiking to unhealthy highs of 103 and 104. When Orin comes home from daycare, it is revealed that his fever spiked again in the afternoon.

Wednesday Mar 2 - Orin relapses, Isabel has STILL not improved and Tiresa is on death's door. Dave stays home with all three of the sickies. It is a house full of whining, moaning and general discontent.

Thursday Mar 3 - Isabel seems to be about 80% this morning, so she is sent to daycare. Dave goes to work and Tiresa keeps Orin home, against her better judgment, because he is still miserable. This made for little rest and Tiresa was wiped and near tears by the end of the day.

Friday Mar 4 - Both children are well enough to go to daycare. Tiresa throws in the towel on working at all this week. Her fever just wouldn't settle and the exhaustion was overwhelming.

Saturday Mar 5 - Both kiddies are 100% (though the tiredness from having been sick is catching up with them quicker than usual). Tiresa is about 60%.

I have never seen a respiratory virus like this. It hangs on for SO long. The weakness and exhaustion resulting from this flu/cold/plague is comparable to what I remember after having had mono. I am glad for my coworkers that I ended up quarantined for the most part because I would hate for any of them to get this over March Break.

Project 365 - February 27-28th

My weekend has been chock full of sick and sleeping babies. So that's what you get.

Project 365 - February 24th

Matching Isabel pic! Poor wee girl woke up feeling miserable. When she tried to eat lunch today, she ended up in tears. She just couldn't do it. Now, I know why because within moments of climbing back up on the couch, she was asleep. So sad.

Project 365 - February 23rd

My poor baby was exhausted by the time I got home this afternoon. Both little ones had fevers and his was getting the better of him.