The Stomach Bug & Fun Family Time

Samantha: 82 Months, Week 3
Aedan: 48 Months, Week 1
Owen: 6 Months, Week 3 (Week 29)

Sunday, April 1st was Easter Sunday, and especially with Aedan getting over being sick, we didn't really have any grand plans. He seemed to sleep okay overnight and didn't get sick anymore. The rest of us seemed fine, so I was hoping it was just something Aedan picked up.

For the past several years, we have made Resurrection Rolls on Easter morning because it's a fun, yummy treat, and a great visual reminder of Jesus dying and being buried, but raising from the dead on the third day; just as the marshmallows "disappear" inside the crescent roll as you bake them. Samantha and Aedan helped cover the marshmallows in the sugar and spice mixture and place them on the crescent roll, then I rolled them up.

We didn't do anything too big for the kids' Easter baskets this year, just some bubbles, a chocolate bunny, and some Easter egg candy. In the past I have always picked out a little toy to put in their basket as well, but we didn't think they needed any more toys this year. They didn't mind though. They always enjoy getting candy to eat. Here they are with their Easter baskets that morning. (Owen didn't get one since he can't eat candy yet.)

Since Aedan was sick on Saturday afternoon, we kept him with us in the big church so he wouldn't possibly get anyone else sick in the preschool room. We didn't want to miss church on Easter, so we figured this would be a good solution. After church we got our kids together for some pictures before going home. Samantha looked beautiful in her pink polka-dotted dress, Aedan looked handsome in his blue vest, and Owen looked adorable in his suit and tie. Again, it's kind of difficult getting all the kids to smile and look for a picture, but we got some pretty cute ones. We have some pretty great kids. :)

I feel like you couldn't really tell what Owen's little suit and tie looked like in the pictures at church, so when we got back home, I laid him on the floor to take a few more pictures. He has a bright green dress shirt on and a little striped clip-on tie. I know it's kind of silly dressing a baby up in a suit, but this was given to us, and I couldn't resist putting him in it for Easter. He looked so cute.

We didn't have too many plans for our Sunday except for eating a quick lunch and getting the boys down for their naps. Aedan didn't have much energy after being sick on Saturday, and we wanted to make sure he got some good rest so he could continue to feel better. We let Samantha have quiet time in her room, and she was busy playing with her toys and set up all these books and toys around her room, calling it a "Toy Fair." She couldn't wait for Aedan to get up from his nap so she could show him the Toy Fair and let him choose the books and toys that he wanted to take. I thought it was pretty cute and pretty creative of her, so I took a few pictures of her set up. It's amazing what her little imagination can come up with when she has time to herself.

I'm not sure why this video turned out upside down, but I thought it was pretty cute to see the way Samantha and Aedan interacted with each other. He thought it was pretty special that he got to pick and choose toys and books to take and keep in his room. He loves getting special attention from Sissy.

As Samantha and Aedan were busy in her room, Ben and I went around the house and hid Easter eggs so the kids could go on an inside Easter egg hunt. It was definitely too cold and snowy to do any outdoor Easter egg hunts here. Especially since Aedan missed going to the one at the Norris Center on Saturday, he was excited to still be able to participate in an Easter egg hunt. They each got to find fifteen eggs, and Samantha had a much easier time finding them than Aedan did, but she was a pretty good sport about letting him have a turn to find some. Here is a picture and a couple videos of the kids searching for their Easter eggs.

We had a quicker lunch that day with plans to have a nicer Easter meal for dinner instead, when we would have more time to make it and enjoy it together. We made ham, baked potatoes, asparagus, and biscuits, and we used all methods of cooking from our crock pot, to our instant pot, to the stove, to the oven. The kids were really excited for the meal and ate it well.

Samantha does a great job of playing with Owen. He loves her attention, and she makes him laugh so hard when she is silly with him or dances for him. She was helping to entertain Owen for us after dinner that night, and it was just too cute. I love his laugh.

Other than Aedan being more lethargic on Sunday, he seemed largely okay. He kept wanting to do more than we wanted to let him do, and we tried to contain how many toys he touched and played with. I spent most of my Sunday night sanitizing all the toys he played with recently to try to stop any germs from spreading. However, as Monday went on, I realized that Aedan hadn't quite recovered yet. He had little appetite since being sick, and then he started having diarrhea on Monday. By afternoon he had it six or seven times, and he just looked like he didn't feel well. His eyes were sunken in, he kept saying he was really tired, he had no energy to do anything or play, and he was really whiny and crying about everything. I was starting to get worried about the amount of times he had diarrhea, not wanting him to get too dehydrated from it, so I called and made an appointment at the family doctor for 8:00 on Tuesday morning. They had afternoon times that day, but I didn't want to wake him up from a good nap just to take him to the doctor. Luckily, he was drinking quite a bit of water. In fact, pretty much all he wanted was something to drink, so that's good, and he hadn't gotten sick to his stomach again.

I was having some trouble getting Owen to sleep on Monday afternoon. With Aedan not feeling well, I didn't want to make him wait for too long to take a nap, so I ended up just laying Owen down in his crib and going upstairs to put Aedan down. By the time I was done, Owen was making very little noise and then stopped. I was completely shocked. I don't think he has ever settled himself to sleep like this, especially at nap time. I had Samantha home on her last day of Spring Break, and I let her watch a movie that afternoon rather than making her go in her room for quiet time. She was pretty excited that I was going to let her watch a whole movie. We don't do that very often, so it's definitely a special occasion. I was so surprised that Owen was quiet, that I had to sneak back into his room to see if he was asleep, and this is what I found. He was fast asleep on his stomach, which I had never seen him do before. Sometimes he is on his stomach when we get him from his bed after waking up, but I always assume that's because he rolls over when he wakes up. However, after seeing him all snuggled up like this, I began to wonder if maybe he sleeps like this more often than I realize. I feel like he would really enjoy sleeping on his tummy because it would almost simulate what it would feel like when he falls asleep on our chest with his head resting on our shoulder. I feel like he would feel a lot more secure and comfortable on his tummy than on his back, but who knows how he sleeps. I know Samantha and Aedan both slept on their tummies quite a bit after they learned how to roll over without any problem.

By the time it was dinnertime that evening, Owen also had several loose stools, a couple that required an outfit change. I was concerned that he had caught the same things Aedan had, but didn't know if it was just because he hadn't pooped in a couple days either. I prayed that Owen would not get sick like Aedan, especially throwing up, and I prayed that this sickness wouldn't spread through our entire family. We got everyone to sleep okay that Monday night, but just as Ben and I were getting in bed ourselves, both boys woke up, Aedan needing to use the restroom because of diarrhea, and Owen because he had diarrhea in his diaper. I hoped that we would be able to get some sleep that night, and that we wouldn't be up all night taking Aedan to the bathroom or changing diapers and sheets for Owen. I hate stomach bugs the most, and I just longed for everyone to be healthy, with no colds or coughs and no upset stomachs.

We were up quite a bit that night, and as the night went on, I realized I must have gotten the germs as well. Diarrhea for me started in the middle of the night, and I was starting to feel terrible. I hoped that it wouldn't turn into something more, but as I got up that morning and started to move around, I got sick to my stomach as well, making it so that Ben definitely had to stay home and help me that day. There was no way I could take care of the boys with the state I was in. By 11:00 I had gotten sick to my stomach four times, and I couldn't even keep a sip of water down. As soon as I would sit up or walk around, I would get sick to my stomach. I spent most of the morning just lying in bed.

Ben took Aedan to the doctor after dropping Samantha off at school that morning. He probably didn't really need to go, but we were wanting some advice on how to stop his diarrhea and also what to do if Owen caught it from him. They didn't say too much, which we figured, but they gave him a stool collection kit, if we wanted to bring it in and have it tested, and just said to keep him hydrated. Here they are waiting at the doctor's office.

I was so glad to have Ben home helping me with the kids that day. In fact, there was one time I thought I was well enough to sit up and nurse Owen, but as soon as I sat up, I got sick to my stomach again. Ben took him upstairs and gave him a bottle instead, and I pumped after a little while so that I could make sure my milk supply didn't suffer. I knew it was going to be hard enough just with how dehydrated I was feeling. Plus, with Owen having a touch of the bug as well, he didn't have much of an appetite, so he wasn't nursing well or eating much baby food either. Even though Owen wasn't eating as much, he didn't have any more loose stools like he did the day before, and he never threw up, thank God. Aedan also had less diarrhea, so I was hoping they were on the upswing from this terrible stomach bug.

I, on the other hand, was still not feeling great that afternoon when it was about time for Samantha to get home from school. I had some ice chunks and was able to keep those down, but I was also hardly moving from the couch. I felt really light-headed and weak every time I tried to stand up and walk around. My head was pounding, probably from being dehydrated. I tried to take the medicine that the doctor gave me for my nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, but of course, since I had to swallow it, it didn't stay in my stomach for very long. After getting the kids tucked into bed, and being able to hold it together long enough to nurse Owen and put him down, before getting sick again, I decided to take myself to the ER that night. Back a few years ago when I had a bad stomach bug like this in Bloomington and was nursing Samantha, I remember going to the doctor and they suggested that I get an IV of fluids to help with my dehydration. I remember it made me feel so much better, and I was hoping that I would be able to get the same thing if I went to the ER that evening. I arrived around 8:30 and was taken back to a room around 9:00. Luckily, I didn't even have to ask, for the nurse started me on IV fluids right away. A doctor came in to see me and decided to give me some Zofran through the IV as well to help settle my stomach. As soon as the fluids started working their way into my body, I started to feel so much better. In fact, I fell asleep in the hospital bed for over an hour. I was sent home with a prescription for Zofran that dissolves so that I didn't have to try and swallow anything, but I was hopeful that this would be the jump start that I needed to begin feeling better. I got back home at 11:30 and tucked myself into bed. The only times I woke up throughout the night were the two times Owen needed to eat, and I didn't get sick to my stomach again.

Wednesday morning we discovered that Samantha's school was cancelled for the day due to the weather. Samantha and Aedan were both super excited for a snow day to just stay home and play, and it was really a blessing to me as well because Aedan had someone to play with while I was still recovering and still not feeling 100%. They did such a great job playing together that morning. They had quite the involved game of Legos going on, even building an airport and Great Wolf Lodge. It was fun just to sit and watch them play. :)

That afternoon I was struggling all afternoon trying to get Owen to nap. He had only slept for half an hour, which definitely was not long enough. However, I spent most of the afternoon trying to get him back to sleep, and it was difficult for me to walk around the room and bounce him when I wasn't feeling better yet. My head was still pretty foggy, and I was still weak with very little energy. I hadn't eaten much in a couple days and was slowly working on drinking and eating more.

My struggles with getting Owen to nap in the afternoon continued on Thursday as well. He was sleeping for only 30-40 minutes after I laid him down and then would wake up crying. I got him back to sleep by holding him and bouncing him, but then he would wake up crying again shortly after I laid him down. I was so confused as to why this was happening again. In the morning he would sleep fine without waking up, if we are at home and I give him a nap in his bed. He usually even makes it past the hour mark. However, these afternoons of him not napping, but still being tired and fussy are exhausting. I know it's not all about the break that I can get in the afternoon, although it would be nice to have some time to get things done around the house, or even to just have some quiet time. However, it would be nice if Owen would start sleeping more consistently. Aedan was such a good sleeper by comparison, at this age. I have gone back and read my blog posts about Aedan at this same time, and he was taking pretty good naps for me most of the time. There was the occasional time he would wake up crying and need to be settled back to sleep, but that was not the norm as it seems to be with Owen. We keep hoping there is some reason, like maybe he is teething again, or maybe he is going through a growth spurt, or maybe it is because he is achieving a developmental milestone. Who knows, and maybe some day we will figure out the cause of why our boy is the king of short naps.

After trying multiple times to get Owen back to sleep and failing, I decided to just let him get up and hang out with me on the floor. I posted a picture of my cute little stinker on Facebook, saying, "He only slept half an hour this afternoon, much too short for this mama, but at least he's happy. Cute boy is moving and rolling all over the place, even getting up on his knees some. We will see when the crawling starts."

And here's a video I took that evening as we were giving the kids baths and getting ready for bed. I wasn't too excited to be seeing more snow on April 5th. The big, puffy snowflakes were pretty, but I am ready for Spring to come to the U.P. I want to see our grass again.

I was so glad to be feeling better that evening and to be more present with the kids. I always feel so bad when I'm sick, not just because my sickness was making me feel bad, but also because I feel bad leaving everything to Ben to take care of. He and I make a pretty good team at home, and although it seems like sometimes we are always tag-teaming it, and doing very little actually together, I like to think we have a pretty good routine and system down when it comes to caring for our home and our kids. So, it's hard for me when I can't help out with that and the burden falls completely on him. 

Ben gave the big kids their shower/bath, so I bathed Owen after that. I haven't taken very many videos of Owen playing in the bath tub. He has enjoyed splashing around a lot more lately, and I know he will enjoy it even more when he no longer has to use the baby seat, but can actually sit up on his own in the bath tub to play and splash. Here's a video of my little guy enjoying his bath time. (I tried to censor it by holding my hand up so that I could still include it on my blog.)

Thursday night into Friday, Owen woke up two times, which is pretty normal for him, once around 1:45, and then again around 6:00. When he wakes up around 6:00, I usually try to nurse him and get him to go back to sleep. On Friday that worked, and he ended up sleeping until almost 8:45, which is pretty late for him. However, when I went down to his room to get him up, he sure was a happy boy. These first two pictures are a little blurry because I didn't have the light up bright enough in his room, but you can see the huge smile on his face as he sees me for the first time that morning. He definitely is a happy boy, and I was getting lots of cute smiles out of him that morning. :)

Most of the week we stayed home since I was still recovering from being sick, so on Friday I decided to take the boys somewhere. There was a MOPS play date at McDonald's, but with all the sickness going around, I didn't really want to go there and expose ourselves to more germs. So instead, I decided to take a trip over to Canada to visit their library and check out their story time. We ended up being a few minutes late because they only had one lane open to get through the border, but we still were there for most of the stories. Owen had slept in so much that day that he hadn't fallen asleep in the car, and he was very interested in looking around the library. Since we were in a new place, Aedan was very apprehensive, as he always is in new situations. He likes to stick right by me, and I have to kind of force him to go out of his comfort zone sometimes. It's so funny to see how his personality is so different from Samantha. Samantha would have walked right in, gone up to the front, and sat down; but Aedan is much more reserved and shy, which is okay. The librarian read several books about sheep, and they they made a sheep for the craft. A lot of the kids at this story time were younger than Aedan, and most of the toys at the library were geared towards younger kids, but he found an airplane and boat to play with, so he had fun driving around the library with his vehicles. I put Owen in the Ergo after awhile to try and help him take a nap. It took a little while of walking around, but he eventually fell asleep for about half an hour. I was able to sit down and read a couple books to Aedan as well, and he had fun exploring a new place. I'm not sure if it's worth the $7 to cross over the bridge just to go to this library for story time, but it was fun to try out anyways.

As it approached lunch time, Aedan was getting hungry and tired, and he asked very nicely if we could go through the Wendy's drive-thru for lunch. I told him that would be okay, so we picked up some Wendy's once we crossed over to our side and went back home to eat lunch since I didn't have any baby food to feed Owen.

I took this video of Owen playing on the floor as I read books to Aedan before nap time that afternoon. He was having a great time playing with Aedan's Maui hook.

Izzy usually joins us in the bedroom as I am putting Aedan down for his nap. She loves to lay on the bed with him, usually on top of him, and she loves to give him kisses. Aedan usually doesn't mind the love from Izzy, as you can tell by his big smiles in these pictures. It's so wonderful having a friendly dog that the kids can grow up with. We trust her completely. She is so loving to everyone (unless you are someone she doesn't know coming into our house, then she will bark at you ferociously until she realizes you are not going to hurt us). We are so glad that we got her a year ago, and we are really looking forward to warmer weather so we can take her on walks again and the kids can play in the back yard with her on a more regular basis.

Isn't she a beautiful girl?

On Saturday we had a couple different things going on. One was a special Crafts for Kids event that was held at a local coffee shop. It looked like it could be fun, so after Owen took his morning nap, we went over there to check it out. Ben and I were able to get some delicious coffee while the kids made paper crafts and Samantha even tried her hand at knitting. This coffee shop also served food, so since it was close to lunch time, and we had always wanted to try the barbecue at this place, we decided to eat lunch there before going home for nap time.

Ben and I wanted to take the kids over to Canada to swim that evening, but we always stay past the kids' bed time, so we encouraged everyone to nap, without telling them what our plan was. Samantha took a short nap, Aedan took awhile to fall asleep but eventually took a nap, too, and we got Owen down but then he woke up after about forty minutes. Ben went down to this room to try to get him back to sleep since I have to deal with trying to get him back to sleep every day during the week, but every time he laid him down, Owen would wake up. So, in an effort to actually give Owen a decent nap, he just held him on his shoulder and let him sleep there comfortably for the remainder of his nap. I know I've said this a lot, but it sure would be nice if Owen would be able to get past the end of his sleep cycle without waking up. Or, it would even be nice if we could get him back to sleep once he woke up without having to stay down there with him for a long time or even keep holding him in order to get him to nap.

Anyways, we were glad that everyone took a nap so we could go swimming that evening. We had an earlier dinner, got everyone ready to go, and headed over to the pool so we would be able to get in as close to 6:00 as possible, when the public swim started. Going swimming at the John Rhodes Community Centre is always so much fun. The kids have a blast in the water, the zero depth pool is perfect for Aedan, and he enjoys being able to walk around and swim without his floatie on, playing with the toys, and enjoying the warm water. Samantha likes to go in the next pool over that is deeper for her, but where she can still touch the bottom. She likes to roughhouse in the water with us, practice swimming with her head under water, and jump in off the edge of the pool. Owen was perfectly happy the whole time, too. He chewed on toys, kicked his legs, and splashed his hands around while he watched all the kids play. We like to go during the public swim times because they have the water slide open, which Samantha enjoys doing, and they have the water features turned on, like the mushroom fountain and the other fountains and sprayers. We stayed in the pool until almost 7:45 before finally getting out to get showered and dressed. It's always a little hectic getting all five of us dressed, but luckily Owen was in a pretty decent mood, even though he didn't take an evening nap that day. We stopped at Tim Horton's on the way home to get doughnuts for breakfast the next morning, and Owen fell asleep in the car pretty much right away as we drove back home. It was a fun, family evening, and everyone was tired from swimming and ready for bed that night.

(Blog about April 1-7, 2018)