Good Health is Hard to Come By
It’s been a bad week for us health wise. The Snotsucker has been out in full force. And we have a new pattern here – if someone has the sniffles, Eero has an ear infection. Last week we took him to a follow-up to see if his infection had cleared up, and not only had it not cleared up, the other ear was infected, too. The poor kid is so mild-mannered and showed no signs of being uncomfortable. We had no idea. Rex had a couple of teeth sprout, and he is not shy about letting us know he is uncomfortable. Magnus is an all-around attention hog, so it’s been a very demanding time as parents.
Sleeping through the night went by the wayside, and there were a few evenings we were up at least once an hour with between one and three children. This has to be relatable for anyone with more than one child: if one is crying in the night, we are half pleading, half whisper-shouting at him to be quiet so he doesn’t wake up anyone else. The strangest part is that Eero, the one with documented illness, did sleep through the night. We can always count on him for a solid twelve hours.
Luckily, as a parent of multiples, I am able to function relatively well on little sleep, but not for several nights in a row. When I haven’t had a solid sleep for a while, I get a hideous cold. Jesse has idiot sinuses that bother him regularly. This has all come to a head over the last week or so.
And let’s not forget Axel in our sleep-deprived, sick house. He’s at a point in his life where slowing down is not an option. There is just not time to be sick; toys need to be played with and messes have to be made. We dined at the local bar and grill Friday night, a place we hit up regularly, and instead of his usual practice of running around the restaurant or shaking salt all over, he said his head hurt and curled up next to me in the booth. Hmmm.
He woke up the next morning saying, “I feel good now,” but when he was uncharacteristically lying on the couch later that day, we knew something was up. We broke out the “Nine Nine,” which is what he calls the thermometer, and got a pretty high reading. Time for some medicine, we told him. Then the freak-out began.
The poor kid is not used to being sick, and not good at it. At just a couple months shy of turning four, he’s had one ear infection and one bout of strep throat. Other than an occasional runny nose, that’s it. It was quite a battle getting him to lie still so we could shoot some liquid medicine in his mouth, and he spit most of it out in defense. That night I thought he felt warm again, and before I even got the thermometer he was crying, “I feel good! I feel good!” The Nine Nine told us otherwise.
This time we wised up and put the medicine in some chocolate milk, and though normally he could live on chocolate milk, it was quite an ordeal to get him to drink it when he knew it was tainted with medication. I escaped to Willmar the next day for some essentials and picked up some alternative children’s drugs, including chewable acetaminophen and some grape Triaminic, which I remember being delicious to the point that I would fake sick so I could have some. Since I arrived home with the new remedies he has not needed them, but they’ll be on hand in case he’s sick again in another couple years.
We really have been fortunate in terms of good health in our boys. The little ones have done marvelously considering their chance birth and way into the world. Also it’s a pain to take them out so they haven’t been exposed to very much I suppose. Having never utilized official out-of-home childcare, Axel has also not been subjected to the germs that often get passed around there, but he has eaten his share of things off the floor and what he finds in the couch cushions. I can’t stop him. He’s also spent a fair amount of time in a filthy auto repair shop. That must be the secret to healthy kids.
Visit threebuns.blogspot.com for photos (Halloween!) and more from our crazy life.
Time Flies
I have come to learn quickly my place in life now – as “the mom” and the only woman in the house, it is my job to get everyone and everything ready. Ready for bedtime, for dinner, to receive company, ready to leave the house, etc. It’s not something I volunteered for, but it is the natural progression of things around here and in other households it seems.
My mom has mentioned on occasion her memories of her grandparents. They would arrive at her grandparents’ home for Easter dinner or some other family gathering, and her grandpa would be cleaned up and dressed and leisurely sitting in the living room. Her grandma would be running around like a crazy person in a robe and curlers setting the table and stirring the gravy and welcoming the guests. Apparently this has been happening for generations.
I remember, as a young child, getting ready to go to church or somewhere nice and my own mother running around in a robe and curlers, dressing us kids and wrapping up the food to bring along. My dad sat patiently on the end of the bed in his robe, waiting for my mom to tell him what to wear. Occasionally, if she was really on top of things, she would have his clothes laid out before he showered, but not always. It was easier for him than getting dressed and having to change because his wife reacted with, “You’re not wearing that, are you?” For the record, I don’t know if that actually happened. At some point it must have for him to arrive at that notion of just waiting to be told what to wear.
My husband can dress himself, thank goodness, but if we go away for the night – just the two of us or all six of us – I end up packing the suitcases for all of us. How do men get out of these things? I do enjoy fashion, and try to keep my family looking presentable in public (at home is another story). I like to play dress-up with my little boys and think of it no differently than if I had girls. But there is a lot of thinking involved in dressing five people, including myself, every day – especially if we are behind on the laundry. Dressing six people for 2+ days can be exhausting, and with all the babes, we need to take into account possible bodily functions gone bad, which requires even more clothing.
There is a lot of time and a lot of stuff involved in preparing four children to leave the house. We try to give ourselves a window, as in “we’ll leave between 9 and 9:30,” then we know we’ll leave by 11:00. Particularly if we are going to be in the car for a long time, we must make sure all the babies have eaten recently and are dry and generally happy. Sometimes by the time we’ve taken care of the last baby it’s time to start again with the first one.
Of course, we cannot leave out the Hurricane. Getting him dressed takes just about as long as dressing the other three. Some days he wants nothing to do with clothes and would prefer to stay in his jammies all day. If we’re not leaving the house that day, he does stay in pajamas. It’s gotten to the point where I will tell him it’s time to get dressed and then he asks, “Where are we going?” Nowhere, I say, we’re just getting dressed for the day. Why? he wants to know, and I don’t really know what to say. There’s no good reason to get dressed some days.
Anyway, dressing our oldest takes forever because he needs to jump up and down, run around, do a dance, show us how his train works, or some other random task, in between every step. We’ve started letting him dress on his own to save time, but he almost always has his underwear on backwards or inside out or both, and that’s just the start. We’re working on it. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled in about 15 years that I’ve put that in the newspaper, but now he thinks it’s hilarious.
Besides clothes we need to pack typical baby stuff like diapers, burp rags, bottles, formula, blankets, toys, etc., times three. We need to make sure Axel has his chocolate milk fix and his blankie with the stars on it. We have to get everyone in their seats and in the car and find ourselves some caffeine. Depending on the duration of the trip we may need suitcases, cameras, laptop, or anything else we deem necessary to function. Then we can leave.
We’re getting pretty good at the routine of leaving now, and I can’t decide if it will get better or worse. In a few years they won’t be so helpless, but will all the little boys be running around in between every step of dressing? Will we be chasing them across the lawn (in four different directions) when we ask them to get in the car? How long will it take us to get anywhere when they start asking to use the bathroom in every little town along the way?
Ever wish you had more hours in the day? Think of us, and then go leisurely sit in the living room while we’re still getting ready.
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