A Team Week 97: Anything But Ordinary

When we planned our vacation, we thought that week 98 of the A Team would be mostly ordinary.  We knew that daycare was still closed on Monday, so I planned to switch my normal Wednesday off to Monday.  On our last night in Atlanta though, we were thrown for a loop.  As we were eating dinner with our friends, I received a text from Christina (the boys' daycare) that her mother had suddenly passed away and daycare would be closed until Thursday so that she could deal with the visitation and funeral.  While we completely understood, we were not sure what to do.  We had already been off work for more than a week on our vacation, so we could not stay home with the boys until Thursday.  Thankfully, we called Eric's dad to see if he would be willing to come to Kenosha and help us out and he was!  So, the week started off less than ordinary and it continued that way to the very end...

As I mentioned, I had already planned to stay home with the boys on Monday.  We had our day off at home together playing, cleaning up and doing vacation laundry.  Asher also had his 4 year check-up at the pediatrician.  Typically when we go to the doctor, I keep whatever kid that is not having an appointment at daycare while we go to make sure that we take home the least germs possible.  Since daycare was closed on this day, that was not an option.  So, Asher, Avery and I all headed over to the pediatrician in the van for Asher's checkup.  He is now a whopping 42" tall and 42 pounds, eating well, growing like a weed, talking constantly and learning new things daily.  Everything checked out fine and Asher did well although he was quite shy with the nurse (who's bedside manner had a LOT of room for improvement).  What I didn't tell him though was that he needed shots.  He was not happy about it.  After he realized the first one hurt getting a few more was not very high on his priorities.  He cried and has decided he never wants to go back.  To cheer him up, I decided that we needed smoothies from McDonald's.  We picked up drinks for all and then headed back home to enjoy our drinks and have a fun filled day together.

Before we went to the doctor Avery went outside in his PJs, and before I could do anything about it he went for a swim...still in his PJs.

Smoothie Time.

The boys wanted to go camping.  This is the tent they built (with my help) in the living room.

Camping.

On Monday night, Gramps showed up and the boys were super excited to see him.  They spent the next two days together playing.  On Tuesday night, Gramps looked completely beat and headed downstairs for some alone time and sleep not long after dinner (I totally know how that feels after a day home with the boys, who were still tired and recovering from vacation).  From the sounds of it though Wednesday went much better with fun for all at the Racine Zoo, lunch a McDonalds and then a swim in the city pool with Gramps and Daddy who met them there after work.

Side Story: Gramps also shared a nap time story with us.  On one of these days he put Avery (who is now able to climb out of his crib whenever he wants) down for a nap.  A few minutes later he was listening to the monitor and heard some bumping around going on and then did not see Avery in his crib.  He went up to check out what was going on and when he opened the door of the nursery, Avery was standing there with his dirty diaper off and holding it out in his hands for Gramps to take for him!

On Wednesday night we all had dinner together at Big Star and then on Thursday, we said goodbye (& THANK YOU) to Gramps and then life got back to normal as we headed off to work and daycare to finish off the week (or so we thought).

I wasn't sure what to do for Christina when the boys went back to daycare, but I knew I wanted to do something.  I looked on Pinterest for "sympathy cards from kids", but found that that apparently isn't a big topic for Pinterest.  When I couldn't find any cute ideas, I ended up merging a few Valentine's ideas that I saw together to create our sympathy gift.

"Hogs & Kisses For You"...a jar full of almond and caramel Hershey Kisses and paper hogs made with the boys' handprints.

On Friday, we thought life was going to get back to normal, but instead I received a text at work from Christina saying that Avery had woken up from his nap very irritable and with a fever.  She snuggled him and took care of him until I got there to pick him up and when we got home his temperature was 102.6.  Poor guy was tired and snuggly.  We watched some cartoons and snuggled on the couch and then he took some ibuprofen and went off to bed early as Eric and I prayed that he would be all better in the morning.

On Saturday when Avery woke up, he was in a much better mood and the fever was gone.  Unfortunately his ailments were not.  We noticed that a rash was starting to break out on his hands and feet and knew exactly what we were dealing with at that point: Hand, Foot, Mouth Disease!  :(  

Two years prior, Asher contracted the same illness and then shared it with Eric (click here for blog post).  However, he must have gotten a pretty easy case of the disease because he was able to handle it much better than Avery. I remember with Asher that he didn't want to eat and was whinier than usual, but other than that he seemed fine.  He didn't miss any daycare and life went on as normal for the most part.  So, when I realized that Avery had it (and I'm almost positive he got it at the doctor office from Asher's Monday appointment), I thought it would be about the same and on Saturday it was.  He didn't want to eat and was a little whiney, but was otherwise in pretty good spirits.  

Avery climbed out of his crib for a nap time protest again and when we didn't come up to get him he fell asleep on the floor.

When life gives you lemons, make "fancy drinks!"
Eric made ribs for dinner tonight and we had a little extra lemon, so the boys and I had some "fancy drinks".  The boys just had water and I had raspberry lemonade but everything looks cooler with a lemon slice on the edge!

Video: Shucking Corn

Although Saturday went pretty well and we enjoyed a pretty low-key day playing at home, Sunday was completely different.  On Saturday night Avery refused to sleep.  He cried and cried all night long, obviously pained by the sores which now covered most of his body and Eric and I got very little sleep as a result.  Avery would fall asleep for a few minutes and we would pray that it would keep but then he would just wake up screaming again.  This went on and on all night long!  :( 

When morning came it really wasn't any different.  We tried ibuprofen and tylenol but neither seemed to give him any relief.  So we did the best we could to care for the boys for the day as we silently prayed for Avery to feel better and calm down.  Instead, he spent most of the day screaming at the top of his lungs and I cried several times as I felt terrible that I could do nothing to help my little guy feel better.

At lunch time, Eric was able to get Avery to fall asleep while I got Asher ready for rest time.  I told him not to move and let him sleep as long as possible...

...unfortunately only about 10 minutes later Avery was up crying again.

Video: A Very Sad Little Boy

Watch at your own risk...this is what we dealt with All.Day.Long

After Avery woke from his brief nap with Eric I had to give Eric a break from the screaming.  So, I sent him off to Meijer to pick up any and all remedies that had been suggested to us to see if any of them gave our little guy some relief.  In the meantime, I sat in a lawn chair and let Avery just cry it out for a while until he had gotten enough out of his system that he was ready to cuddle.  I felt awful, but there was nothing else that I could do for him.  Finally, he crawled into the chair with me to snuggle and eventulaly cried himself to sleep.  I stayed that way for over an hour getting burnt as the sun moved through the sky and my shade was replaced with full sun.  I stayed as I was starving because I hadn't had a chance to eat anything other than a little bite of breakfast and it was late in the afternoon.  I stayed even though I was dying of thirst and desperately needing to go to the bathroom all at the same time because as his Mommy that was all that I could do for him.  Let him sleep as long as he possibly could.  Let him rest and have a few minutes of reprieve.  As I said it was a tough day.

His poor little hands.

When Eric came home he brought me some snacks: Cheesy popcorn and a frozen Coke!

He also brought our potential remedies: baby Orajel and teething tablets for his mouth, Gold Bond Anti-Itch Lotion which our pediatrician recommended to us and Aveeno Baby Eczema Therapy.

As soon as Avery woke up, we tried out everything and found that the true winner was the Aveeno therapy (a BIG thank you to Morgan Kaiser for suggesting this!).  It was wonderful.  We made a bath for Avery with this and forced him to stay in it for 5-10 minutes.  He wasn't thrilled to take a bath, but I noticed him calming down as he sat there.  When he was done, I wrapped him up in the towel and we headed down stairs to watch the Land Before Time.  He was still clingy and wanting Mommy or Daddy, but he was not crying and seemed very content to have no clothes on.  We cuddled for awhile and then he wanted to be with Daddy so I put a diaper on him and let him sit up on the couch where he snuggled up with Daddy and watched more of the movie.  I was SOOOO happy to have him feeling a little better!!

When the movie was over, we had a little dinner (well Asher, Eric and I did...Avery still wouldn't eat anything other than popsicles) and then it was time for bed.  I took Avery back upstairs, gave him another bath and then put him to bed in nothing but a towel since he seemed much happier to have his diaper off (he had lots of sores in this region).  I knew that we might have a huge mess to clean up during the night, but when your little one is hurting, you will do whatever you need to do to make them feel better...and that, ended our anything but ordinary week.  I prayed that Avery would be able to get more sleep this night and that the A Team Week 99 would start out better and much more ordinary.