surviving the holidays with sick kids

Thanksgiving is fast approaching and sadly both of my boys are down with the flu. I am sad that we will not be spending this Thanksgiving with family, but I am happy that we can spend time together as a family while everyone recovers. I am praying that Mike and I don't get it, well at least me so I can stay well enough to take care of my boys.  

I thought I would share my top 3 tips on surviving the holidays with sick kiddos.

1. Make sure that you have a couple cans of soup, some crackers and gatorade on hand. 

It's almost guaranteed that if you cook your sick child will not want to eat whatever it is. I always try to have chicken & stars or chicken noodle on hand so they can opt for that. Crackers come in handy for upset tummies or to eat before they take medicines that require food before taking. The gatorade I think is really important. My kids HATE drinking water when they are sick. I try to keep some gatorade around because high fevers will dehydrate kids really fast. Plus, when you have more than one sick kid you can give them each a different color so they don't get drinks mixed up and pass even more germs around.

2. Have the essential medicines on hand and updated.

Tylenol, Advil, Benadryl, Delsym (or some other cough medicine approved by your pediatrician), Vitamin C (for the parents) and Saline Swabs for little noses. And you can't forget the measuring cups and syringes! These are the most common medications used when you have a sick little one. I try go through my medicine basket every couple of months and replace anything that has expired. There is nothing worse than having a child with a 104* fever at 2 am and expired Tylenol. (Another thing I try to keep on hand is Nature's Way Sambucus Black Elderberry Syrup. It is a great natural immune boosting, virus fighting berry syrup that is safe for kids over 2 and adults.)

3. Let your TV babysit.

I will be the first person to tell you that I do not like my kids to lay round all day watching TV. But in some cases it is ok. When you have two sick kids, who's bodies hurt the last thing I need to do is make them play just because I don't want them watching cartoons. To be honest, it makes my life a little easier. They are not as whiney as long as something good is on and it is a lot easier for me to get stuff done around the house (or rest if I am feeling sickly).

4. A MUST: Clorox Wipes, Lysol Spray and Hand Sanitizer.
These are a must for any household with sick people. Normally I go the natural cleaner route, but when someone gets sick I crack out the tuff stuff. I try to spray all the rooms with Lysol at least a few times a day. Especially where the kids have been laying around and coughing all day. I always spray the door knobs, remotes, chairs, etc. And I have strategically placed bottles of hand sanitizer all around the house. I may seem like overkill, but you will be thankful for it later :)

Also...  if you don't already have these, I highly recommend them:

Braun ThermoScan Ear Thermometer 

I have used every kind of thermometer on the market and I absolutely love this one! It is super easy to use, it is ready as soon as you turn it on and it only takes seconds to give you accurate results. Plus, I can even take their temp while they are sleeping without waking them.

Netflix or a Couple of DVD's

I know that not everybody has Netflix on demand, and that is okay. Dvd's work wonderfully too! The kids love watching movies when they are sick. They have a bunch of great kids holiday movies out this year!

Simply Saline Nasal Swabs

I found these the other day at the store. My oldest was having problems with his nose going between runny and super dry. When it would get super dry he would have these horrible nose bleeds. These have worked wonders! For little ones, I think they work better than the spray. 

there once was a rock...

A few weeks ago during Tyler’s hospital stay they discovered that he had a rock stuck in his left ear. Now I feel really bad that it has taken me this long to get it done, but with all the craziness of school ending we finally got it taken out. The whole time we were waiting I stressed how important it was that we DO NOT stick rocks in our ears, noses, etc. But they are boys and there will be a next time :)

Here are the boys riding in the elevator.
They thought we were going up 400 floors, but it was only 4. 

I have to say that they were awesome in the waiting room!

Playing in the exam room... even though we were not supposed to.

Time to get the rock out! Things started off great,
then when the doctor stuck the extraction tool into his ear all hell broke loose.

Sad eyes :(

The rock!!!
It was a lot bigger than we all thought.

blessing in disguise

Last Wednesday night Tyler and Jacob were playing and Tyler tripped and fell. He said he hit his face and almost immediately his jaw area began to swell and he could not eat. I immediately thought that he broke his jaw. So there we went at 9pm to the ER.

They did a CT scan to check for any fractures.

My brave little guy did wonderful :)

We finally got to go home around 1:30am.

They sent us home that night and told us that nothing was broken, but when we got up the next morning his face was double the size as the night before and he could still not eat. So off to the pediatrician we went.

The doctor did not know what could be causing the swelling so she sent us back to the hospital for another round of CT scans. After they did their scans they sent us back to the doctor who was concerned because the swelling had gotten even worse throughout the day. So she sent us back to the hospital where we were admitted. We even got an added bonus that day... we found out he had a rock stuck in his ear from one of the CT scans :)

Tyler was so brave when he got his IV and they hooked him up to all the monitors. And even after 18 hours with no food he was still all smiles.

We told him he was in the hospital so he needed to look sick. This was his sick face... :)

By Thursday night his face was severely swollen. His face had more than tripled in size even though he was on two very strong antibiotics. All they could tell us was he had an infection in h is lymph nodes but didn’t tell us much more.

Friday morning he woke up and he was finally starting to look better.
He was even in the mood to eat his breakfast!

Him and his daddy were so cute sitting there together. We were on the third floor so they were talking about all the buildings and cars. It was adorable :)

Friday night we had problems with his IV and I had an altercation with a male nurse who yelled at Tyler. It was 3am and he woke Tyler up to flush it. Either way I did not appreciate the way he was treating Tyler so I told him to leave. But the good news was they took out his IV. It was a huge deal.

By Saturday morning Tyler was feeling much better! His face looked so much better and he was back to his old self. He had a blast playing with his balloons that his little friend sent him.

His favorite thing to do was hide in the little closet in the hospital room and jump out at us :)

 

Before noon Saturday around lunch the doctor had came to see Tyler and said he could go home on oral antibiotics. We were so happy! After three days in the hospital we were all ready to go home,spend some time with Jake and see my in-laws.

I am so grateful to everyone who prayed for Tyler’s healing, my BIL and SIL for keeping Jake so Michael and I could stay Tyler and God for blessing us with such a wonderful little man who was awesome even under not so desirable circumstances. And had he not complained about hitting his face when he tripped, we would never have known how bad his infection actually was. It was a blessing in disguise!

****************************************

Rejoice in hope, patient with affliction, faithful in prayer.
Romans 12:12

****************************************

a week with sick babies

This last week was definitely chaotic.

We started off the week with an extra two days off from school. We got haircuts and I got to work on making my cash envelopes (more on that in another post :)) We had lot’s of fun together!

Then came Wednesday.

I woke Jake up to get ready for school and he was crying because his head hurt. Now, I know he can be dramatic so at first I was skeptical. But he was running a 101* fever so it was off to the doctor instead of school. Come to find out my poor guy had strep! Then came the fun part. As we were walking out they reminded me that it was time for Tyler’s 4 year checkup. As I was looking at a calendar to schedule they suggested that they just get me right back in and get it over with. No biggie right? WRONG! He needed not one, not two, but 3 SHOTS! So here I was with kiddo with strep and one that just got his arms and legs poked.

Thankfully everyone (including mommy) was much better when we were able to lay down and watch TV. So far it looks like mommy and daddy have dodged the bullet and did not catch what Jacob had. Sadly, I have to take Tyler back to the doctor tomorrow. He has been running a low grade fever and coughing non stop for 3 days :(

xx Praying for a mostly sick free week xx

Here is a look at my week through instagram eyes…

{Tyler getting ready to get his hair buzzed off}

{Jacob hooked on his Lego Wii game}

{Cash envelope trial run}

{Iced vanilla soy latte. Yum!}

{My baby boy}

{A very sick Jacob}

{This stays attached to my bank card at all times}

Prayers Needed

Hello ladies!

Sorry I have been MIA lately.

I am trying to get everything caught up from Thanksgiving and post some pics.

Our Thanksgiving was wonderful!

Michael ended up with the stomach bug, but recovered quickly.

And this week has been super hectic.

Jacob went to the doc yesterday for severe headaches and they scheduled an MRI for tomorrow morning.

As a mom, naturally I worry, but trust God that everything is okay.

And today he is home sick.

It is never fun to have a sickly one at home :(

Will update you as soon as I can get back on here.

Hope you are all having a blessed Wednesday!

P.S. It is supposed to snow Friday!!!
Hello Winter :)

Scare of my Life!

Friday morning I had the scare of my life. My youngest son, Tyler, would not stay awake and was not acting like himself. I called the pediatrician and I took him in immediately. He still would not stay awake and was pretty much unresponsive. He was taken by ambulance to the hospital. After ruling everything else out they determined that his blood glucose levels were 46! In a child his age they should be somewhere between 100-200 mg/dL. So they were way below normal. At the hospital we got some orange juice in him and he perked back up. They decided they wanted to keep him overnight for observation to make sure it didn’t happen again. We were discharged the next afternoon and he seems to be doing great! We have to check a his glucose levels and take him in to get blood drawn, but so far so good. He will also get a bedtime snack and juice with some peanut butter crackers as we take Jacob to school.

This was a horrifying experience and it really puts things into perspective! God gave me these beautiful boys and I am going to change a bunch of things from what we eat to spending more time with my kids. Here are a few pictures of Tyler’s stay at the hospital…

Here we are in the ER waiting for a room. He got these sticker for being a good boy in x-ray…

He ate up every bit of attention he got. Both Mommy and Daddy stayed with him 24/7, he was waited on hand and foot and he got to watch cartoons all day!

Daddy super sleepy and not very comfortable.

A very sleepy mommy and Tyler.

Tyler and Daddy putting together a puzzle Courtney brought for him.

All he wanted to do was move that bed up and down, up and down… you get the idea.

I’m Free! No more IV’s and cords, were goin’ HOME!

Watchin’ Toy Story 2 and relaxin’.

Tyler and Quack Quack

Could it get any worse...

Some of you may remember me posting about Tyler's rash. It has not gotten any better, but it has actually gotten worse. I am in the process of trying to get him into a specialist because nothing has worked on making it go away. We have been through 2 weeks of benedryl 24/7, a weeks worth of prednisone and several creams and washes. But wait there is hope... my phone just rang and it was the pediatrician she got me into a specialist at 2:30 this afternoon. I am so relieved because we called and we would not be able to get him in until January!

Here is a picture of what his rash looked like this morning

If your itchy and you know it scratch your legs....

This is what poor Tyler's whole body looks like. It has gotten progressivly worse over the past week, so today I took him to the doctor. She told me it was a severe allergic reaction to either somthing enviromental or food but she was willing to bet it is a food allergy. I feel so bad for the little guy, I know he itches all over. The worst part is he has to be on Benedryl round the clock for the next 7 days along with an oral steroid. Please keep him in your prayers.