this moment

(Charlie in the bathtub, rockin' the 104 fever)

It seems like I have really good weeks, followed by ones that are so bad, they're stupid. This was a stupid week.

(More) sickness! (Extended) family drama! (Old) friend drama! All in all, pretty depressing.

On a happier note, we did have our house cleaned. By a professional. A professional who changed our sheets, emptied our cat box, cleaned our trash cans, and made our house genuinely sparkle. Having someone come clean the house is a gift from my mom, and I love her for it.

But let's talk about the bad stuff, because I just feel like complaining and because I like documenting this stuff. (I won't be discussing the drama for obvious reasons.) My back was bothering me big time at the beginning of the week. (Probably from toting around a 19 lb baby and 30 lb toddler.) We were so sleep deprived because Simon is in the middle of the dreaded four month wakeful period, up at least 4 or 5 times a night. By the time Tuesday rolled around, I was feeling awful, but I truly thought it was just sleep deprivation and muscle tension. (Just!)

Charlie was very reserved on Tuesday, up until the afternoon when he was melting down every five minutes or so for no reason at all. At one point I was holding him and noticed how hot he was. Turns out he had a fever of 104! I have to admit that for one second, I quietly panicked. Just for one second. He's never had a fever that high. My first thought was "let's take him to the ER" but then I called the on-call doc, who reassured us that really young children can actually handle higher fevers much better than adults can. We gave him dinner, a lukewarm bath, and some Tylenol, and by the time bedtime rolled around, his fever was down to 100.9.

That was a long night, with Charlie and Simon both waking up multiple times - Simon had developed a fever as well. In the wee hours of the morning, I began to feel feverish, took my temperature and it was 99.5. The muscle tension had made its way into my ribs at that point - it felt very much like the back and rib pain I had when I was pregnant with Charlie. I was pretty much hurting all over, but at that point I knew I was getting sick and that some of it had to be the dreaded body aches. I did see my chiropractor that morning - my mother-in-law, saint that she is, had to drive me because I was in that much pain.

When I got home I crawled into bed. And only really emerged to help Roy take the boys to the doctor. It was a heartbreaking visit. I am not one of those moms who cries when her kids get shots or things like that. They recover so quickly and never make a big deal about it, so that's probably why. Either that, or I am a soulless demon. But Charlie was oh so traumatized from the beginning, starting with the nurse trying to take his temperature. She couldn't get a good reading because he kept thrashing around and screaming. At one point, he shrieked, "A bear? A bear?", wanting to hold his polar bear BFF. Oh man, it was just so sad. I ended up taking his temperature myself, which went much better. Then, when it came time to weigh him, he was inconsolable. I almost lost it myself and had to make an active effort not to cry. Poor Chuckles.

Simon was much more agreeable, and after ruling out meningitis, the doctor said they probably had the flu. He gave us a prescription for Tamiflu, which we did not get filled. But by the time we got home, the boys had no more fever. Charlie slept pretty well during the night, while Simon woke up a gazillion times. I had my fever off and on all through the night, but by Thursday morning it was gone. As the day went on, my body stopped hurting so much, but my sore throat, which had been mild up until that point, got much, much worse. Charlie was pretty much a mess for most of the day, and I can only assume that he was dealing with a sore throat as well.

I took some Advil before bed last night for my throat, which helped, but I woke up multiple times in the night (thanks, Simon!) absolutely soaked in sweat. It was pretty bizarre. I am not a person who sweats much, certainly not while sleeping. I also had a very strange dream, which is nothing unusual. I dreamt that one of my favorite bloggers wrote a pretty interesting new post. Then I was going down some giant water slide on an air mattress somewhere in Central America. But then I had to go back to my friend's house for some other reason that I can't remember, and then I left again. I got involved with a bunch of people who decided to steal pizza, and we got totally busted by the cops just as we were about to leave in our giant tour jeep. Oh, and I lost my camera. I was seeing all these cool things in Central America and had no way of documenting them. When we got back from our tour, I went to lost and found to see if anyone had turned in my camera, but no luck. My keys were there, though. That's pretty much all I remember of that dream. I woke up thinking about Malibu and how much I would love to take the boys camping there sometime soon. Maybe we'll do that. We deserve something supremely fun after all this sickness crap.

Being sick is depressing. We've had about five bouts of sickness in our home since Simon was born, and I'm really kind of burned out on it. I've never had to deal with this much sickness in such a short amount of time; I can only assume that it's because of the boys, which is fine - being sick is good for their immune system, but blah. It really is not fun at all. I spent several hours on Thursday reading the archives of this blog, which I hadn't read in several years, and was reminded how lucky we are not to be dealing with chronic illness. The boys are healthy; Roy and I are healthy. That is everything.

(PS, This week Simon gave up the swaddle and the swing. He's been sleeping on the floor, in our bed, or in the bouncy chair.)