Got fiber?

I swear, if it's not one thing it's another. We're all healthy (knocking on wood), but for the past several days BOTH babies have been incredibly fussy, especially over night. They are clearly having some tummy issues. Their abdomen gets very tight and they just KICK their legs. Mr. Man is so strong I can hear the mattress bouncing when I'm in another room. They scream, and then they (if we're lucky) toot or burp and things seem to be better. I talked with our nurse yesterday who has instructed us to seriously up the fiber in their diet, going as far as keeping a food log. So now, they're both getting 2 oz prune juice 2x daily, cereal mixed back in with their solid foods, and a serious change of the solid foods they've been eating. We're cutting out apples and bananas, and going full steam ahead with pears, prunes, peaches, peas, etc. Avery seemed to be considerably better last night, but poor Connor was really hurting:( I need some serious sleep. Here's hoping the weekend will bring us all a bit of rest (and toots!) And in VERY exciting news...Sophie slept in her bed at least 5 hours last night. It was enough to get me on the bandwagon to keep up with this new accomplishment.

The never ending cootie factory

As I mentioned yesterday, I've been really sick. For the first time that I can remember, aside from pregnancy related sick time, this is the first real time I've been too sick to make it to work. I saw my dr on Wed, who gave me some meds just in case I had an infection. I kept getting sicker and sicker. By Thursday I could barely talk. My nose was a bit stuffy, but mostly it was in my throat.

Fast forward to now, and I'm STILL sick, although it's more in my nose than throat now. My worst fear was realized however, as now Sophie, Dan and Connor are all sick. I hope that Avery can stay in her little bubble, because a fussy Avery is NOT a joy to deal with. Sophie's nose has been dripping like a faucet, and now she's coughing. She also complained last night about her back hurting, and then did the same again this morning. Her sitter said she didn't fall yesterday, so now the dr wants to see her to rule out any kidney issues. So much for going two weeks without seeing Dr. R. They may as well just give me my own parking spot.

And whining, oh the WHINING that is coming from Dan. You'd think he'd cut his foot off or something, but yet he doesn't want to go see the dr. This morning I told him if he won't see the doc, that I have no desire to hear him complain.

Anyhoo, in an effort to get back into the habit of posting here, now everyone knows about the cooties that we just can't shake in our house.

Nana. Bye-bye?

It amazes me how much Sophie still talks about her Nana. With a few exceptions, it's usually out of the blue, which always blows my mind, although it shouldn't because I often think of her at odd times too. There must have been something about yesterday...

We were both really sick this weekend, since I brought home some sort of nasty virus and unforunately gave it to Sophie. I was hanging out with her and babies in our family room, with babies in their jumparoos, and Sophie playing on the floor. I was sitting in the chair where Bonnie would have been sitting, had she been there.

Sophie brought her book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" to me, pointed to a certain page and said "nana." This caught me off guard, but then made me laugh. My mother in law HATED this book lol, and could not understand how Sophie wanted to hear it over and over. Of course, she complied with each request;) I looked at Sophie and said yes, that her Nana used to read this book to her alot, to which Sophie said "Nana, home?" I said "no baby, Nana's not at home." She then said "Nana, house?" "No baby, Nana's not at her house." An odd look came over her, as if she was trying to understand what this meant. Then, she said "Nana, my house?" "No baby, Nana can't come to your house." This clearly confused her, and she finally said "Nana. Bye-bye?" I was hesitant to say yes to this, because I didn't know how much her very literal mind can understand right now. But I said "Yes, Nana is bye-bye" and then after a few seconds finally got out "we won't see Nana anymore." Then I fought the tears. That's the first time I've been able to say that to her. She clearly didn't understand, or maybe she did. I'm not sure.

Later last night, Sophie and Avery were in bed and I was rocking Connor in the same chair I mentioned above. I felt her there, maybe because it was Sunday night and I was watching her favorite news shows. I don't know. But, I felt her there. Then Dan, out of the blue, looked at me and said "mom would have been sitting in that chair doing the exact same thing."

That was three of the five of us, and the 3 that can actually verbalize our thoughts, that mentioned her yesterday. What's up with that? Dan's birthday was on Friday, his first without his mom. Maybe this is part of it?

germs and cooties...gone

I've been busy dealing with a house full of sickies. I do believe that all the nasties have officially left the building though. To recap the last 3 weeks.

Thanks to wheezing and retractions, I took Avery to the ER twice in the same weekend. On a Friday night she was diagnosed with RSV. I took her back on Saturday night because the Albuteral was just not working. THey gave her a nebulizer treatment that did the trick. I learned from the ER doc that RSV is code for crabby ass baby. She was simply inconsolable. The dr informed me that RSV basically eats away the lining of the nose and throat. So it hurts. Babies scream. Parents cry. It was really bad.

Our 2nd trip, Saturday night, I could SO tell the nurse and the dr were assessing ME for how close I was to the brink of insanity. We were in a room for TWO hours, with Avery screaming the ENTIRE time, before a nurse came in. When she finally did I had tears streaming down my face, from frustration. Dan was at home with Sophie and Connor so I had no one to help. The nurse asked what I needed. Did I need a soda, no. To go to the bathroom, no. To take my baby. YES, please take my baby. Thankfully, she did. Where she took her, I don't know. I just know that she was gone, and the screaming stopped (at least as far as I could hear). I sat down and cried, and cried some more. SHe was gone for at least 30 minutes and it felt fantastic just to be alone. I am NEVER alone. Occasionally I would wonder where they went, but then I just put blind trust in the nurse that she was trying to help me and would not steal my baby.

The dr finally walked in with Avery. She was a mom of triplets, and it felt good to know that she GOT it. She understood my frustration. She did assess me. I'm sure she had no idea that I knew what she was doing. Asked me lots of questions about how much help I had. Luckily, she felt I was in OK shape to take my daughter home. SHe requested that I feed her every 3 hours, instead of 4, and keep her full of Tylenol until the virus was gone. She told me to do the same with Connor, who most definately also had RSV, although was never diagnosed.

That's only the 2nd time I've come close to the brink of totally losing my shit. Of just collapsing into a puddle right there on the floor, not even wanting someone to help pick me up. The first time was a few weeks after my mother in law died, when I was essentially single-parenting because Dan was just not capable. It's not fun.

The twins gave RSV to Sophie, which manifested itself in a REALLY nasty cold. These lovely cold symptoms caused asthma symptoms, so all three babies were getting puffed full of albuterol on a very regular basis.

In the mean time, both babies have had ear infections, and Avery apparently inherited the lovely issue of excema.

Connors "lump" was officially diagnosed as a hemangioma. In infants, this usually pops up outside of the skin so is treated by a dermatologist. Not Connor. His is internal, and will be treated with meds, by an ENT.

I took him back to the ENT 7 days after starting the propanalol. She was amazed by his progress, and thought that the lump had shrunk by at least 1/3 in just a week. Hmmm...I should have guessed something was up. I went to refill his script a few days later, only to be told that insurance wouldn't cover the meds for several more day? I questioned why this was, when it meant we wouldn't have enough to get him through until the refill date.

Turns out, the stupid idiot pharm tech instructed us to give him the meds in ML, when actually the ENT had written it for MG. So, I was giving him almost three times more medication than he needed. The kicker is that the main side effect of this med is lowered heart rate. So yes, Wal.greens could have killed my son. THe pharmacist told me to go home and take his pulse. Thanks to his ever growing fat folds, I couldn't get a pulse at his neck or wrist, so I sent Dan back to Walgreens, with Connor in tow. I figured it was the least they could do. She finally got a pulse of 77 at his femoral artery. Lowish, but OK.

We quit giving him the meds until we could talk to the dr office. The nurse confirmed that while scary, and completely unneccesary, as long as he seems to be ok, it wasnt it a huge worry. The dose I was giving him was an amount the dr would have worked him up to anyway. She started the meds out very low, on purpose.

So, that's what I've been dealing with, instead of keeping this blog up to date. I always have an excuse, but they're usually pretty darn good;)

I downloaded over 700 pics from my new camera this AM. hope to have some new ones on here soon!!!