Thursday:
I guess I should have expected it. Lukie got his first cold after being at daycare for a week. I knew I wouldn't LIKE seeing him sick...I didn't know that it would turn me into a psycho mommy.
We had a pretty nice weekend before Lukie really showed many signs of being sicker than just having a runny nose (which I mentioned in the last post). On Saturday morning when he woke up, it was running pretty constantly. He and I spent some time wrapped up in blankets on the front porch, swinging back and forth while I wiped his nose every once in a while. Luke LOVES being outside, and I figured if he didn't feel very well, that was the place he'd enjoy cuddling up to me the most. I even took a rare selfie (actually, there's another one later in the post) of him and me hanging out on a Saturday morning.
It was so nice and cool, we just snuggled under blankets for an hour or so. He went down for a nap, and I watched some Looney Tunes, but eventually, we made our way back out to the porch. The weather was so nice that we actually spent a good part of the day out there. I even moved his swing out so he could sleep out there while I read a book and Daddy mowed.
Sunday afternoon we went to a concert at Dogwood Park. Pete works with a group called Rural Resources which supports local agriculture and runs children's and adult's programming to educate people about sustainable farming. Pete is on the board, and they had asked him to come help with the concert, since Rural Resources was providing all the food as a fundraiser. I decided to tag along with Lukie. Despite feeling a little sicker by then (I have to assume), he really did a good job staying happy almost the whole time. Of course, sleeping through half of it helped, too.
The only bad thing about the situation was that Pete and I forgot to get cash before the event, so we couldn't eat there, and the food smelled SOOO good. Pete was cutting watermelons, but the spot next to us was dishing up roasted vegetables that had been cooked in these giant blue hubbard squashes. There was barbecue, stuffed peppers, goat cheese and crackers, ice cream...it was AWFUL to not be able to eat it all! That said, we came home and had some Mexican sweet potato lasagna I had whipped up earlier in the day, so at least we got good food later!
Okay. We've reached Sunday night in our little recap. Sunday is when it all went to hell in a handbasket. He went down fine at about 8:00, like usual. His nose wasn't really even running. He woke up at 11 or so, which is unusual for him, but he went back down so I thought everything was fine.
Then, at 2 a.m.....it all went to heck. I heard one cough and thought maybe I'd made it up, since sometimes I THINK I hear him when really it was a dream, and the cough sounded really weird, anyway. But then I heard it again. Lukie sleeps in a bassinet right outside our bedroom door; we had to move it out there because I'm such a light sleeper that every little move he made would wake me up when he was in the room with us. He started coughing and it sounded AWFUL, like a seal barking. It was croupy and congested and so scary. I brought him into the bedroom and woke Pete up, telling him that Luke was sick, and then I tried to nurse him to calm him down.
Then Luke spit up, coughed, and gagged all at the same time and I swear, it sounded like something out of the Exorcist. It scared me so much that I said, "Oh, my God!" and pulled him off of me, which just upset him more. I was shaking by then because it sounded like he was choking and couldn't get any air. I gave him to Pete for a minute, but I couldn't take not holding him myself and I asked Pete to give him back to me. I told Pete I wanted to go to the ER because Luke was gagging and choking and gasping. Pete talked me off the cliff and told me to calm him down first and we'd see if it was serious. I finally got Lukie calm and he stopped coughing. He fed, and then we put him in his buzzy/bouncy seat next to the bed for the rest of the night. I got NO sleep, but Luke really didn't do too badly.
I called the doctor in the morning and they got me in at 9:30. The doctor told me Lukie had a cold, that the drainage had caused all the nighttime problems, and that he was doing fine but that I needed to stay home with him that day (I had no intention of sending him to daycare, anyway). He slept a lot that day and wanted to be on me ALL. DAY. LONG. Which I really didn't mind...
...because I kind of wanted to hold him, anyway.
Luke never ran a fever, and he really didn't do too badly on Monday, though he was tired and quite a bit fussier than usual. By Tuesday, he was clearly feeling better, barely sniffling, and coughing just a little bit. I'm actually quite impressed by how quickly he bounced back from the cold. He still coughs a little, but it doesn't sound too congested, and I'm constantly watching to make sure it's not developing into a secondary infection. We're still letting him sleep in his buzzy, just so that he's upright and we don't have another incident where the drainage starts choking him, which is ultimately what had happened on Sunday night.
I was also impressed by Lukie's ability to still be smiley a couple times on Monday when was his sickest. He cried a lot of the day, and it was a sad, pathetic, drawn-out whine that just BROKE my heart, but there were a couple of times he seemed to bounce back a little. I got a few smiles out of him. They didn't last long, but at least I knew he was feeling okay-ish.
Nothin' makes a man smile like a clean diaper.
So that was the big hullabaloo this week. My baby got sick. And honestly, I wanted to pull a Miss Frizzle and shrink myself down, get inside him, and hunt down whatever bugs were making him sick and GET. THEM. OUT. OF. THERE. I felt super helpless, like I just couldn't fix it. But at least Luke had a better attitude than I did. I think the cold was tougher on me than on him!
In other news... Lukie turned 11 weeks old on Wednesday! Time is flying so quickly now that I'm back at work. I still take him to daycare even on my days off, mostly because those are the days I can catch up with all the work that still needs done at home.
Case in point: today I dropped him off, went to the gym, the produce stand, the gas station, and got a cup of coffee. (Ok, a chai latte. I hate coffee. At least now I've found something that I can drink and it makes me feel like a grown-up.) Then I went home, unloaded the groceries, did the dishes, cleaned the bathroom, the living room, and the kitchen, vacuumed the entire house top to bottom, did 4 loads of laundry and folded all of them, made a casserole for dinner, made zucchini bread, changed the sheets on the bed, and pumped 3 times before picking Luke up at 4:30. I think I work harder on my "days off" than my "days on". And I STILL don't get everything done! There's still a garden to weed. That, plus making meatloaf and a Moroccan chili recipe I found this week, will have to be a weekend project.
Update Saturday: Here are some "11 weeks old" photos from this morning. I definitely don't take as many pictures of him now that I'm working, but I got a few today! The mark on his nose is from him scratching himself. Those little nails are like razors!
Also, the Moroccan chili was a total success!
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