One Crisis After Another

Yes, I realize it's been 9 days since my last post.  I'm certainly not doing a good job at keeping up with my posting, lately.  Reminds me of my journal just after I was married.  Except, back then, I often didn't even finish an entry - it would be left in the middle of the sentence, only for me to find it still incomplete 2 months later.

Anyway... I could blame my infrequent posts on a lot of things.  But suffice it to say that I'm sorry if you've been checking regularly, only to be disappointed!  I'm having a hard time, these days, finding a time where I'm ready and able to dedicate a good chunk of time to writing about my life.  ;)

The past week has been full of a lot of little (and some not-so-little) crises.  Shall I tell you about them?

Our good weather streak lasted a good long time.  Wednesday was the last day we were supposed to get really great weather, so we took ourselves out to the playground, which was now soft and muddy from the melted snow and ice.  The weather was so great, in fact, that Jacob didn't wear a jacket, and was just running around in his t-shirt.  I wore a sweater jacket, because I tend to get chilly no matter what, but I ended up feeling much too warm and a bit sweaty even in just that!

Since the ground was so muddy and gross, I didn't feel too keen on the idea of letting Alex just wander around.  So I put him up on the playground equipment.  I did my typical thing, where I let him go where he wanted to go, and just guarded the exit areas from the ground, so he couldn't fall off.  Well, that worked fine, until he crossed the equipment all the way to tall spiral slide.  Melinda was right with him, so I didn't get concerned, foolishly.  I just watched from the ground, ready to get him as he went down the slide.  I feel so stupid that I even thought it was a good idea.  You would think that I would be past these sorts of mistakes by my third child, wouldn't you?  At any rate, it wasn't a good idea.  Alex was having such a good time walking on the playground equipment, that he just kept right on walking when he got to the edge of the slide.  Probably because he's not terribly familiar with slides yet, and doesn't treat them like stairs, which he's generally wary of.  All I could do was watch with horror as he stumbled down towards the first curve of the slide, which was as tall as my upstretched hands.  As soon as his hips collided with the edge, the momentum carried him headfirst over the edge of the slide, hurdling towards the ground.  I yelled in horror and dashed to that side of the slide as fast as I could, instinctively hoping I could catch him.  But of course, I'm not that fast.  I watched him, almost in slow motion, tumble through the air towards the ground, my reaching arms being too far away to afford any help.  After he flipped headfirst off the side of the slide, his legs sort of cartwheeled over his head, and he ended up landing with a low thump on the soggy woodchips in quite possibly the best position one could hope for, after falling from such a height: He landed completely horizontal to the ground, partially on his side, so that it at least looked like his shoulder, hips, feet, and head all connected with the ground at the same time.  He started crying instantly, and I scooped him up just a split second later, clutching him close to me and then inspecting him.

There was not a single scratch anywhere on him, not even a mark from any of the woodchips.  No bruises.  Nothing.  It was the luckiest fall I've ever seen in my life.  But of course, Alex was pretty scared, after falling a good 7 feet down to the ground.  Holding him tight and rocking him wasn't helping him calm down.  I was so glad I had the ultimate baby-calming weapon:  Nursing.  As soon as he started sucking, he was quiet and calm, even if his eyes still looked spooked.  And I just sat, trying to calm myself down, too, feeling stupid and foolish for letting my 10-month old navigate the playground on his own.  Guilty as I feel about it, you can probably bet that he won't set foot on a playground without me holding his hand the entire way until he's almost 3!

After we were finished playing at the playground, we headed home.  I practically had to rip them away, even though their only playmate was a little boy who barely spoke a word of English.  They were having so much fun having anyone to play with at all!  It seems to rare that we run into other children while we're out.  But we were expecting a UPS package, and they tend to arrive right around 5pm, and I didn't want to miss it.  As we neared our building, though, I saw that there was a UPS truck parked in front.  And then I saw the UPS delivery man go back into his truck with a rather large package in hand.  I knew it was mine.  So the kids and I totally booked it down the sidewalk, trying to catch him before he left.  Melinda thought it was great! Jacob, not so much.  He collapsed crying on the sidewalk about 100 feet from me, screeching that he was too tired to run (why is that never the case indoors?!?).  And of course, since he was collapsed, that meant he wasn't walking towards me, either.  So the whole time I'm there talking to the UPS guy and signing for the package, he's wailing on the sidewalk refusing to move another step.  Finally Melinda convinced him I wasn't running anymore, and he joined us, face red and streaked with tears.  And we got our package!  (I've never had to practically chase down a delivery guy before!)

We had done our taxes and got our returns back that week, and Jesse and I decided to buy Guitar Hero: World Tour (the band kit) for something fun to do with our money.  Most of our tax returns is going into savings, some of it is paying for car parts and repairs that we needed, but this one little thing, we're having some fun with.  And this package that I hounded the UPS man for was it!  We were so excited to get it, we didn't want to wait another day.

We've been enjoying our Guitar Hero fun since then.  Jacob took immediately to loving the drum set, and Melinda wasn't far after.  Jesse and I have fun teaming up to do guitar/drums on all sorts of different songs.  Even Alex has joined in the fun, and if he's down on the ground playing anywhere near the drums, he'll reach up and hit them with his hands.  I've played around with singing with some songs with the microphone, but for most of them, I'm just not familiar enough with them to attempt the singing.  At any rate, it's been a lot of fun, and a purchase we've really enjoyed.

On Thursday, the weather changed sharply.  A lot of strong winds blew through and brought cold air.  We visited a friend, and two houses down from her, a tree had fallen over, leaning on the power lines.  We didn't lose power or have any ill effects ourselves, though!  But we did feel sad, saying goodbye to the beautiful spring-like weather.

Saturday was Valentine's Day, of course. The kids really loved getting their own little mini-tin of four chocolates, and a Valentine card from Mommy and Daddy.  Jacob is still hanging onto his, even taking it to bed with him, despite it getting bent and a bit crumpled.  He has asked us to read it to him several times.  It has a picture of a monkey on the front, and I wrote "our little monkey Jacob" on the inside.  He giggles at that a lot. ;)  Jesse and I just exchanged boxes of chocolate.... maybe next year I'll suggest we just go to the store together and pick out our own favorites, hehe!  We don't tend to make a big deal out of this particular holiday.  We decided to go out to the Golden Corral buffet for dinner on Saturday.  It was full of really delicious food, as always.  I stuffed myself with too many good main course types of foods, and didn't have enough room in me to enjoy dessert, which made me really sad.  :(  But it is one of my favorite places to have dinner, with all the choices to pick and choose from.  And I really love their steaks!

Jacob had started sounding funny on Friday: His voice was just off enough that it seemed like a good throat-clearing would fix things.  But he started getting a runny nose and a cough just a couple days later, and felt a bit warm by Sunday night.  By Monday he was sounding pretty bad, with a hacking, phlegmy cough.  And Alex followed quickly behind him, with his own profusely runny nose, phlegmy cough and fever.  In fact, he was very hot on Monday night.  I'm guessing he probably had a fever around 102 to 103, though I never brought out the thermometer.  Despite his near-constant waking, he was in a fairly good mood for being so hot, so I wasn't too concerned.  He was pretty wide-awake at about 6am, so I changed his diaper (nursing constantly throughout the night has a way of filling those things up quickly!) and took him into Jacob and Melinda's room, since they had both migrated to our room during the middle of the night.  We laid on the bottom bunk - so that if I fell asleep and Alex was awake, he'd be able to wander around on the floor without being in any danger.  And when I set him down on his back next to me, he just laid still and "talked" to me for 10 minutes or so, pointing at my face, "honking" my nose, and eventually playing peek-a-boo behind a stuffed animal.  He had a smile plastered on his face the whole time.  So he couldn't be feeling too badly, could he?  He eventually talked himself back to sleep, which was entertaining to watch - usually he really fights sleep.  But neither of us got much sleep at all that night.  Poor little guy just couldn't stay asleep after every cough woke him up.   And if he wasn't nursing, he was coughing.  And for whatever reason, I just couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep through nursing for most of the night.

Today, Jacob still has a cough, but is looking better otherwise.  Alex sounds about the same, but wasn't so hot last night (and the fever was essentially gone during the day, and again during daylight hours today).  Unfortunately, my throat started tickling yesterday, and today I woke up with a headache, and I'm starting to have a productive cough, too.  Jesse feels about the same.  I've heard Melinda cough a few times, but somehow she has this amazing ability to skip most of the illnesses that circulate in our house.  I won't be surprised if she never coughs more than a few times total, you know?  So we're all sort of house-bound this week, besides doing the grocery shopping that couldn't be put off another minute, back on Monday.  Jacob is driving me absolutely up the wall.  He's throwing, hitting, pushing, and screaming almost constantly.  And Melinda is doing her part in teasing him and egging him on.  And I'm just too tired to deal with it to the best of my ability, anyway.  I'm lucky that I got them all down for a nap today, though Jacob was really fighting hard against it.  It took him 20 minutes to stop thrashing around constantly and just twitch or kick occasionally, to finally just slipping off into sleep.  And I doubt he'll go to sleep easily tonight.  I think we got spoiled with so much outdoor time last week, that these few days of being house-bound s really getting to him.

Also by Sunday, I was freaking out pretty badly about another potential crisis.  If you're afraid of "too much information", stop reading now.

Really, you've been warned.   I'm going into major girl-territory here.

After Alex was born, my cycles came back at only 4 months postpartum, despite my exclusive breastfeeding.  (And, as a side note, I always felt rather bitter and robbed because of that!  I got 15 months out of Jacob, but only 4 out of Alex, and over a month of that time included typical postpartum bleeding!!)  I had been keeping careful track of my cycles this time around, and though for a while they were rather unpredictable, I eventually evened out to a regular 26-day cycle.  Now, this was fairly short for me.  Pre-Alex, my cycles had always been 30 or 31 days.  Even back when I was a teenager, and even between pregnancies.  So this whole 26-day thing was a bit new to me, but I got used to the regularity.  So, Thursday was when I was expecting my next cycle to start.

By Saturday, still nothing had happened, and I was getting really concerned.  But it still wasn't on my mind constantly.  By Sunday, when we were home and had little else to do, I really was freaking out.  But I still hadn't worked up enough courage to take a pregnancy test.  In my mind, it was better to not be sure about anything, than to know for sure that I was pregnant with another surprise baby, only 10 months after Alex was born.  I wasn't ready to deal with that sort of reality, so I settled for just worrying endlessly about the possibility.  By Monday morning, I had had enough of torturing myself with guessing games, so I took the only test I had in the house.  But not until after I had a good quiet one-on-one pleading session with the Lord, where I both begged to not have a pregnancy yet, or to at least be able to accept His will for me, somehow.  Because while I don't think I would terribly mind a 4th baby in the house, even if it wasn't what I wanted right then, the thought of another pregnancy, at least at this point in time, absolutely was sending me into a panic.  There was just no way of thinking about it that made it sound like even a remotely good thing.  I just couldn't imagine carrying, nursing, and caring for a 10-month-old, super-active child while growing a giant, uncomfortable belly....among many, many other negatives that I thought of over the course of the previous few days.

I shook the whole time I waited for the results of that test.  It was a nice clear, strong negative, though, and I felt a little lighter.  Unfortunately, that particular test was also a year past it's expiration date.  And so I couldn't trust it completely, even though most of my Google searches told me that expired tests generally gave either ambiguous or false positive results, instead of false negatives.  I had to go grocery shopping on Monday, anyway, so I picked up a new pack of tests at the store, and took another test later that night.  I didn't shake quite so much, that time. 

Again, it was negative.  A nice, clear, strong negative.  I was happy, and so relieved!!!  But what the heck was going on with my body??  I felt like I couldn't be 100% sure about the results, despite how much I trust that brand of pregnancy tests, until my cycle showed up.  And so I waited, a bit anxiously

Finally, late last night, things started up again.  I don't think I've ever been so happy about it in my life!  I'm also not sure exactly what held things up, though.  Was it stress-related?  Or perhaps all those short cycles were anovulatory, and this time, ovulation started again, lengthening my cycles back out to my previous normal length?  Or maybe even a combination of both?  I'm not sure what to expect next month.  Sheesh!!

Now, see, I *have* to update more regularly than this!  This post was ridiculously long!!!

Memorial Day Weekend

I just *love* 3-day weekends. I used to love them before kids, for completely different reasons. Now, when I look forward to 3-day weekends, it's pretty selfish: I'm so eager to have Jesse around for THREE WHOLE DAYS! Still, we managed to do quite a few fun things this weekend, I think. We did the "ice activity" on Sunday, of course, but we also went for a nice long visit to the park on Saturday. The only problem with that was that I completely didn't plan ahead, and we went sans sunblock. We were in the sun for maybe 1.5 hours, which I didn't think would be a problem at 3pm - the danger hours they always talk about are from 10am - 2pm. But, Melinda did end up with a bit of a sunburn on her arms. Actually, we think the outdoor time for the ice activity contributed to it, because she really didn't complain about it before then. And we were outside at 4pm for that, which I really thought was safe enough. At any rate, she has a bit of a sunburn. Not bad by any means, but bad enough that she's really been complaining about itchy arms.

On Monday, we did two things:

First, a "wormery" activity. We got together with a friend and her kids, and dug around in her backyard garden for worms. Actually, I have to say I felt quite embarrassed. This activity was planned for the week before, but got rained out. She emailed everyone to say she'd try again for the next Monday. And since that Monday was a holiday, I hadn't decided for sure whether we'd come or not until the night before. And then I realized on Monday morning that nobody had replied or said anything confirming the date, so I tried calling her that morning before we left. She didn't answer, so I decided that maybe she was already outside with her kids and just didn't hear her phone. And so when we showed up, she totally wasn't expecting us. Apparently everyone else who had planned on coming contacted her to let her know that they wouldn't be able to come because of the holiday. And dumb ol' me just never bothered to let her know I'd still be planning on it. But she was wonderful, and smiled her biggest smile, and said how glad she was that we came! All 5 of us!! And so she quickly finished her vacuuming (oh yes, I did show up unexpected!!) and grabbed her supplies so everyone could do the activity. They had a fun time, finding all those worms! We layered dirt, newspaper shreds, and threw the worms in as we found them. The idea is that the worms will actually eat the newspaper, and you can continue to add in dirt and kitchen scraps as you see fit, and the worms will just keep on living in there! It was kind of neat to see a couple worms split in two (and keep on living) while we were digging them up, too. Melinda was tormenting one by holding onto one end for a very long time, dangling it - it finally split to try and save itself, I guess!

After the activity, we ran home to change clothes and eat a light snack, and then headed on our way towards Pennsylvania. Well, it was sort of round about. First, we had to go back to our friend's house to pick up the hat Melinda left behind. We would need it for the sunny afternoon ahead of us! And then we had to go to the store to get a new hat for Jacob (he lost his hat at one of our destinations on Saturday, and we didn't notice till Sunday), and also pick up some dessert and chips to take with us. And just as we were checking out, Melinda started having an absolute fit about how itchy her arms were, so then we spent almost 10 minutes in the pharmacy area looking for Aloe. All while she was having fits. What fun, huh?

Finally we headed up to Pennsylvania. Our friend Russ was celebrating his 30th birthday, and decided to make a real day of it, and they rented out a pavillion, had a barbeque, and even bought ice blocks for riding down the hill. We had a lot of fun up there, until Melinda's mood got even worse. She was suddenly having meltdowns at every other turn. Too tired. (Have I mentioned how the kids are now not going to sleep until almost 11pm ... regularly? Depsite our efforts!!) So we left for home around 4pm, despite wanting to stay longer and even head over to our friends' house afterwards. And she did fall asleep in the car, as we expected her to, but only about 10 minutes from home, of course. Sigh. We really thought that Jacob and Melinda both would have no problems going to sleep that night, because we really had a full, active day. But they proved us wrong, both falling asleep just before 11pm again. It makes both of us upset, quite honestly, but Jesse handles it slightly worse than I do (well, not every time it happens....), getting mad at everything, not just the bedtime situation. It just snowballs for him.

Oh, but back to yesterday: Jesse and the kids had some fun experimenting with ice blocking down the hill, but Melinda's arms got scratched up by the grass. Jacob was doing just fine, loved playing on the large playground, was having a great time, even entertained himself in the ice bucket that kept the drinks cool. But Melinda was having meltdowns about drinks, dogs (not being allowed to randomly play with them without asking), arms itching, everything. So we headed home. But they did have fun. And so did we. It just would have been more fun to stay longer and play and visit more.

And here I am today, and now Jacob's got a fever. I can only assume he picked it up from Nursery at church. It seems like he always gets sick on Tuesdays. Sure, we hung out with a lot of kids on Monday, but let's face it, most sicknesses aren't gonna get you sick less than 24 hours after you're exposed to them. And nobody we played with yesterday had a fever, either. But let me tell you, it hasn't been fun trying to keep Alex happy, keep Jacob happy, and deal with the sickeningly humid weather today. Jacob wants me to hold him, but I CAN'T, unless I want to melt in a large puddle of sweat. I can hardly sit still without melting in sweat. Plus I'm worried that he'll pass the fever on to Melinda (who continues to complain of itchy arms throughout today), or worse, to Alex.

March comes in like a lion...

We're all familiar with the phrase, "March comes in like a lion, and goes out like a lamb", right? I have to say, I've only ever thought of it in terms of weather.

But this year is definitely different.

We managed to go pretty much all of winter without anyone being sick. Just one time recently with very short stomach bugs being the exception.

But suddenly, since it turned March, it seems like everyone in the house has been sick, one thing after another.

Right after I started having pain last week, I noticed Melinda's eye looked pink. We had been to the park earlier that day, and she had run quite far from me with her friend. Since she had been out of close watch, I asked her if she bumped her eye on something. She told me that yeah, she bumped her eye on the bleachers next to the field. Okay, makes sense enough, so I brushed it off. But no, the next day, both eyes are pink. And not just a little bit. The kind of pink that makes you think someone's been crying hysterically for hours, you know? Not to mention, all around her eyes sockets were puffy and swollen looking. So, pinkeye it is.

Thankfully, it cleared up by this morning, and never had a lot of eye goopiness/crustiness associated with it. So my guess is just a mild viral pinkeye. But we had to skip playgroup, much to everyone's sadness, and also had to keep Melinda home from church. It was a very boring weekend for her. But pinkeye being contagious as it is, Jacob came down with it as well. I was all set to take him to church with me, and leave Melinda home with Jesse, but Jacob still hadn't woken up by the time I was already late heading out the door (I guess we can blame that on Daylight Saving Time changes, bleh). When I got home, Jacob wanted to snuggle, and I noticed his eye looked pink. Sure enough, closer inspection showed that it was.

Of course, Jacob just thinks it's the coolest thing ever. We said "pink eye" so much over the past few days, while talking about Melinda, that when we said Jacob had pinkeye, he got totally excited. "Pinky eye? Pinky eye?! OH!!! Go look in da mirror!" [runs off down the hall to get to the full-length mirror, where he inspects his eyes by pulling down each lower eye lid with a finger.] And suddenly Jacob is dancing down the hall, triumphantly declaring "PINKY EYE!!!"

It doesn't seem to actually bother either of them, aside from making them rub their eyes every now and then, but we still would never expose other people to it, so we have to once again limit our activities until Jacob's eyes have cleared up. So a few more days of being house-bound. Sigh. And so close to when the baby is due, when I really wanted to squeeze as many fun activities in for the kids as possible, to make up for the boredom they'll have once the baby is here and we don't do much at all for the following month, you know?

Jacob also started having some diarrhea yesterday. Looks like he passed it to me, unfortunately. :(

And Jesse is home from work, again, because he somehow came down with a respiratory thing for the second time within a couple weeks. He just sounds awful, with the really low raspy voice and the hacking cough.

And I'm sitting here cringing through every single one of them getting sick, because I sure don't want to get sick. And I don't want this baby to come while everyone is sick, no way!!

So March has come in like a lion, making everyone sick and all that jazz. Here's to hoping that March goes out like a lamb...peacefully, with no illness in sight when the baby is born.

Mommy's turn for the stomach bug

Sunday night, not long before bedtime, I noticed my stomach felt funny. It was one of those feelings where you can't quite decide if you're hungry, or too full, or queasy, or have an embedded burp, or what. And since my belly is getting pretty huge with the pregnancy these days, I also had the option to consider that maybe the baby was just pressing on my insides oddly. I ended up deciding to eat a couple slices of toast to see if that would fix anything. It didn't make any change, but I went to bed, all the same.

And then, yep, I woke up at 2:30am. Tummy still felt a little funny. I sat up, and literally had an internal conversation with myself, trying to convince myself that no, I was not, in fact, queasy. But telling myself so didn't make a difference, and soon I was running for the bathroom. Barely made it in time. Thank goodness we got our bed up off the floor, huh? Takes a lot less time to get from bed to bathroom these days. Perfect timing for that change, I guess!

Jesse had been thinking about calling in sick the next day, anyway, since his throat was feeling sore and his head was bothering him most of the day on Sunday. Those are his typical precursor symptoms for getting sick (even if "sick" only means a moderate cold). So when he heard me puking in the bathroom, he decided for sure that he'd be staying home on Monday. I threw up a couple more times overnight, and a couple times the next day, though I felt a tad queasy constantly until around 4pm on Monday. It seemed worse, for sure, if I stood up or sat up, so I pretty much just stayed in bed, unless necessary, all morning and afternoon. It was certainly a wonderful thing that Jesse stayed home. He took care of what the kids needed, and I got generally uninterrupted rest. When I finally got out of bed, I sat at the computer for a little while to catch up on email and things, and after a while felt very cold. Which was odd to me, since the entire time I was laying in bed, I was definitely on the too-warm side of things.

I ended up laying down on the couch with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders. Jacob decided he wanted to snuggle, with a blanket of his own, so I ended up with 2 blankets covering me. Jacob left when Jesse offered them some dinner. I fell asleep, buried by 2 blankets, and when I woke up, I knew I had a fever. My face felt incredibly flushed, the way it would feel if I were terribly embarrassed and blushing like mad. I didn't take my temperature until a couple hours later, but when I did, it was 100.5. Not a terrible fever, but enough to make me uncomfortable. I spent my evening watching movies and laying sprawled on the couch in a vain attempt to feel a bit cooler.

Since I went to bed still sporting a fever, I decided we'd better cancel our Tuesday morning plans. Melinda was so saddened by that. We were supposed to go to her friend Kate's house for "circle time", with rhymes, finger plays, and simple preschool type games. It's been on the calendar for a week now, and she's really been looking forward to it. But I couldn't justify possibly spreading a stomach bug + fever to other kids and mommies. I ended up sleeping pretty well that night (despite having slept most of Monday!), and I appear to be healthy again. As perhaps was manifest by my ravenous hunger this morning, hehe! I really ate barely anything yesterday - a container of yogurt, a couple nectarines, an orange, and a few handfuls of dry cereal. Otherwise I just tried to drink enough water (and eventually Gatorade, since the water became unappealing) to keep myself hydrated.

Jesse was just so awesome on Monday. I worried all day long that he wouldn't be feeling very good, himself, and then had kids to take care of on top of it. But at the end of the day, he said, "It sure was nice to stay home today!!" And I said, "Really?! Even with having to take care of everything by yourself?" "Sure!" he said, "I wasn't doing much anyway. Mostly playing video games all day!" LOL. But you know, he did all the diaper changes, all the feeding of the kids, ran to the store to get extra stuff for me, and did his best at keeping the kids out of my hair and relatively quiet. Plus, he did bedtime all on his own, and it was great fun to listen to that. He told them the story of the Three Little Pigs, in his own words, with voices and everything. Jacob was absolutely hysterical with laughter. I couldn't help but grin, from the other room. And when it came time to give them bedtime kisses, Melinda asked for Mommy after they got kisses from Daddy. Jesse told them I wouldn't be coming in, since I was too sick, and then proceeded to give them kisses "from Mommy", with a high-pitched voice. Melinda giggled and accused, "But Daddy, you don't look like Mommy!" I heard Jesse say, "Oh! But how do I look like Mommy? Do I stick my belly out really far?" Man, I almost burst out laughing at that one. I know Melinda did, a little bit!

Now, after all that chance to rest through an illness yesterday, if only House Elves really existed, and decided to visit our house. It's a little bit of a wreck, and I don't wanna fix it!

Just life.

On Tuesday night, I had trouble falling asleep. It was the kind of night where I was dead tired, but absolutely could not get comfortable enough to actually fall asleep. I finally start drifting off at about 1:30am, when Jacob cries in the other room. Not whimper-y crying, but "I'm really scared" kind of crying. Since we keep the house pretty dark these days, and he's had a few nights in a row with that sort of waking, I sent Jesse in to go get Jacob and bring him to his floor spot next to our bed. It's basically a pretty beat up chunk of egg-crate type of mattress foam topped with a sheet. He comes in (on his own, we don't shut the doors once we're all in bed) every night to lay there, at some point, until morning. Anyway, Jesse went to get him, and after a minute, calls somewhat softly, "Um, Jacob just threw up on me." Huh? What do you mean? He wasn't that upset! And he certainly wasn't acting sick at all before bed. It wasn't much - just enough to wet his shirt, I guess. At any rate, we stick him next to our bed, and we settle in, and I start finally drifting off again. When, yep, you guessed it, Jacob starts making throaty sounds and suddenly vomits again. I *somehow* managed to heave myself out of bed, over my mountain of pillows to support my growing belly, grab Jacob, and dash to the bathroom before he was finished vomiting. I was lucky enough to have a potty with a removable bucket in there, so I grabbed that to catch the rest. But he still got the sheets before I had moved him, so we had to change his bedding. As soon as he had finished throwing up, he seemed perfectly chipper, and wide awake. Like nothing on earth was out of the ordinary. Watched me change his sheets, and complemented me on a good job ("Oh, very nice, mommy. New sheets! Ohhhh, Dora pillow! Very nice!"). As soon as the lights were off, he easily snuggled back into his spot, pulled the blanket up to his shoulders, and drifted back off to sleep within moments. I was so jealous.

He threw up again - yes, right as I was finally getting back to sleep. His stomach was pretty empty by this point, but I had smartened up a bit and grabbed a bowl from the kitchen and also a spare towel. We avoided any messes, and went settled back to try to sleep when it was over. And yeah. Right as I was once again finally managing to drift off to the bliss that is sleep, Melinda joins us in our room, and settles down next to Jesse's side of the bed. But no worries, not a huge interruption, and soon I'm settling back into the pull of dreamland. And then suddenly, the gagging sounds start again, and I once again heave myself to reach the bowl over the mountain of pillows and shove it under Jacob. Who seems surprisingly unresponsive. My brain takes a moment to process his limpness, and I say loudly, "Jesse, is Melinda making that sound?" Jesse jerks into action, and yes, Melinda is indeed throwing up right next to him. She didn't take it in stride like Jacob did, and was soon screaming between the stomach spasms, and even managed to get some in her nose. Poor girl. Once it was all over, she was fine again, but we also had a new set of bedding that needed to be changed. The clock read 3:30-ish am. *rueful smile* ...

Jacob, thank goodness, didn't throw up again during the course of the night. Or the next day. But Melinda had another couple episodes up until around 5:30am, and I didn't sleep soundly until after that. Both of them were finally sleeping well by the morning hours, but I still had to drag myself out of bed and make a phone call - I was supposed to watch 2 young girls for another sister in the ward on Wednesday, but obviously my children had something contagious, so I needed to give as much warning as possible that I wouldn't be able to take care of them. I got back in bed after the phone call, and Jesse was getting ready for work. Just after he left at 8am, Melinda throws up again. I was still awake enough to take care of it, yay me! But around 8:45, she threw up again, while I was still sleeping, so I didn't react fast enough to catch it all (boy, did that girl drink a LOT of water over night!!). And this time she was in my bed instead of next to it, so now my sheets were covered in vomit. And I wasn't about to re-make that mattress on my own, I'm too awkward these days. So I stripped it and tossed it in the laundry with some other bedding that had collected overnight, and we all made the quick journey out to the front room to veg in front of the TV. (Jacob woke up during Melinda's last episode...and yeah, she was still freaking out each time she threw up.) I grabbed the crib mattress and a couple extra pillows and light blankets, figuring we'd want to sleep some more. I set the crib mattress next to the big couch. Melinda took the little couch, I was on the big couch, and Jacob go the mattress. I turned on PBS, arranged the bowls close to each child, and we settled down. Melinda still threw up a couple times, but finally finished around 10:30am. We all fell asleep sometime around 11:00 or 11:30am, and slept until a blissful 1pm.

Nobody had really eaten anything yet at that point, so I made some pasta with Alfredo sauce and spinach for lunch. Both kids only took a few bites. After lunch was over, it wasn't long before the kids were taking naps again. After round 2 of naps, Melinda was back to herself completely, begging to get out of the house, saying she wasn't sick at all anymore and was bored. But no, we stayed in, of course. We watched even more TV at this point, and had a few snacks. Melinda was now eating like a horse (whereas she had really barely eaten at all, from the day before until that point in late afternoon), and claiming ravenous hunger after she scarfed down every snack I offered her. Jacob, on the other hand, didn't even finish the chocolate animal crackers I had given him (yeah, I know, not a great sickie snack, but I didn't have anything particularly healthy but light to offer at that point), and wouldn't even touch other choices I ended up setting in front of him. He sat on the couch quietly, and Melinda eventually started playing some video games. Jacob drifted off to sleep once again. He may not have thrown up as much (and neither of them were feverish at all, by the way, during the whole course of it), but I guess it wore him out more!

After Jesse had gotten home and we had all eaten some dinner, and snuggled on the couch while watching Finding Nemo, Melinda surprised me by asking to go to bed. I didn't think she'd really be tired enough, the way she was acting that afternoon, but we started the bedtime process anyway. Despite the fact that Jacob had just woken up less than 2 hours previous. And you know, they both went to sleep very easily and quickly.

We had a perfectly normal day today, I'm happy to say. We got out and did a little bit of shopping, and just as we were pulling into the parking lot at about 3:45ish, I looked in the rear-view mirror to see both kids nodding off in their car seats. That's sort of typical for Jacob, who still usually needs a nap around the 2-3pm window of the day, but I was surprised by Melinda, who had gotten so much sleep the day before. When we got into the house, she said, "Can you just put me in bed?" Sure, honey, whatever you want. Melinda slept from about 4pm until just after 5pm, and I found Jacob laying awake in his bed at 5:30ish. "Are you awake, Jacob? Don't you want to come out??" "I know." He says, breathlessly. Jacob now says "I know" for "yes". Very consistently. And yet he still laid there. Jesse swooped in and picked him up, while I went back to dinner-making.

Jesse stopped by Home Depot on his way home from work, and got a 6'x4' piece of plywood for under $6. What is it for? Our bed. For the last ... year maybe? ... our mattress has been on the floor of our bedroom. Our boxspring is just shot. The resulting saggy, makes-you-roll-into-the-middle loveliness of the mattresses gives us both quite a backache. And we haven't wanted to (or really been able to) afford a new, quality mattress set, and the kids still like to sleep next to us, so we just put the mattress on the floor, with the box spring up against the wall, acting like a headboard. It's worked pretty well, and our backs have been saved, but now that I'm 32 weeks pregnant (and measuring 34 weeks...), it's been truly awful trying to get out of bed in the middle of night, in the dark, over those mounds of pillows, the tangling blankets trapping me, while avoiding gouging Jesse with my elbows on the one side, and stepping on Jacob on the other side, from floor level to upright walking position, all while I very much have to use the bathroom, right this instant. So that's where the plywood comes in. It has found its home sandwiched in between our mattress and box spring, and our bed is once again up on the metal frame with wheels thing, at a normal bed height. It's pretty disconcerting, actually, to have the bed that high again. Makes the room look totally different, for one thing, and it just looks unnaturally high, as well. But I imagine it will be quite nice for those middle-of-the-night pregnancy-induced bathroom runs. I hope the kids don't mind the difference it makes when they come in to sleep next to us on their "floor spots" in the middle of the night. I know for at least a little while, from my perspective, Jacob will seem crazy far away from my reach, way down there on the floor. But the plywood seems to have done it's job - the mattress feels just as firm as it did on the floor, now. And when we have the baby in just a little while and put the Co-Sleeper next to our bed, our bed will actually be the right height to make the Co-Sleeper functional, haha! So it all works out. We'll see, over the next few nights, if the kids adjust to it okay. Jacob will have to make some adjustments in less than 2 months, anyway, since he won't be able to come in and sleep in the same spot the Co-Sleeper will be. Either they'll learn to stay in their own room, or he'll learn to share a space with Melinda, if need be, I guess.

Boy oh boy, was this post super-rambling! I could have just said, "Our kids both spent most of Tuesday night puking, we spent most of Wednesday sleeping and watching TV, and everyone's better now. Thank goodness for short-lived stomach bugs! Oh, and we put our bed back up on its frame, with the help of a little plywood! No more floor sleeping for us!" And it would have amounted to the same thing. But then, where's the fun in that? ;)

OH! A little post-script to add in here, since my mind is on the fact that I'm largely pregnant... I've had some eczema issues this entire pregnancy, which has been weird, since I've never ever had eczema before in my life, at least not to my knowledge. Jesse's sister, Sarah, mentioned that her friend once had some skin issues during pregnancy and found out it was a liver problem. I started doing searches on liver issues during pregnancy, and found nothing good. So I talked to my midwife and we ran a blood test to check my liver, since it seems any liver issues raises risks of complications for the baby. I'm happy to report that my liver seems to be functioning normally, yay! Unfortunately, that means my eczema is totally unexplained. Hopefully it will resolve on its own after the baby is born. If not, I may never wear short dresses or shorts again, or go swimming for that matter!, because my legs are just patchy and hideous! ;)