What just happened?

(This is a "before and after" story - I started this post yesterday/Wednesday.)

Have you ever had times in your life where you just have to shake your head and ask "what just happened?!" It's only Wednesday, but this might go down in our record book as the l-o-n-g-e-s-t week ever for our family. To start off, our new son is getting all his zzz's during the day and virtually none at night. So, after 3 weeks, we are exhausted. He seems to have bad stomach cramps at night and he vomits and spits-up frequently between 11pm and 4am. After trying 3 different formulas (including soy) thinking that it would solve the problem, we found out from his doctor that he has reflux. We can go back to using milk-based formula. Hopefully with some new strategies and reflux medicine it will resolve our night time issues. So, Monday night I went to bed around 10:30pm and laid in bed for about an hour thinking that I had a really bad tension headache and stress stomach ache. Then the vomiting started - 14 + hours long. Somewhere in that 14 hours the fever and chills began. At the same time, Michael was dealing with Andrew's vomiting and stomach cramps (we hadn't been to see his doctor yet to know it was the reflux). At 4am Michael had to get some sleep, so I took care of Andrew between my own visits to the bathroom. By 11:30am on Tuesday I realized that I had to go to the doctor myself. Michael took the baby to work with him and Sarah went to Mother's Day Out. (Michael also had to take the baby by himself to the baby shower our work was having for us.) My mom drove me to the doctor to get a shot of Phenergan (sp?), which stopped the nausea, but also made me pass out until around 11:00am today. Thankfully my parents took Andrew last night so that we all could get some decent sleep. The icing on the cake has been Sarah's extra messy diapers. She has had really nasty ones on and off for a few days now, but it seems to be worsening. This afternoon she woke up way too soon from her nap. Determined to let her cry herself back to sleep, I didn't attend to her right away. After a while I realized she wasn't going to stop crying. When I went in to check on her there was a mess all over her crib.....and her hands. She had put her hands down her diaper! There's one more part of the story that makes it just really gross. Sarah is very attached to her toothbrush and sometimes we let her have it just to stop the whining. Well, the toothbrush was laying right in the middle of the mess!

Since we have been home with Sarah, so many people (well-meaning, I'm sure) have told us how easy we've had it with Sarah. We've often been told we don't know what real parents go through. So, for everyone that has teased us over the past 8 months....let it be known, we've just been schooled!!! (ha, ha) I'm sure we'll laugh about this......someday! Well, I'm off to finish boiling toothbrushes (don't worry - I threw Sarah's away) and washing bed linens.

Thursday.... A new day!!

Ok, I think we can breathe a little easier now. I'm back on my feet, Sarah's diapers are better, and we just gave Andrew his first dose of medicine. Hopefully we'll all have a better night's sleep. Despite the illness and sleepless nights, everything else is going well. Both kids are healthy and beautiful. Sarah loves, loves, loves her baby brother. We have not had any jealousy issues since we left the hospital. She showers Andrew with kisses and likes to press her cheek against his and say "ahh." I really thought that bringing a baby into our home would make Sarah regress a little bit, like wanting to take bottles again, but it has actually made her grow up even more. She is asserting her independence a little more each day. Of course we are getting to see lots of two year old behaviors in her (she is now 22 months). Somebody please tell me the whining stops at age 3! :-) Andrew is also a growing boy. Despite loosing his lunch daily (the reflux thing) he managed to gain 1.3 pounds in two weeks. He is now an 8 pound boy. He is about to outgrow his newborn clothing already. Michael and I are both looking forward to about the third month, when things settle into more of a routine and we start to see smiles and personality. Newborns are hard to read.

That's about all the time and energy I have for blogging right now. We have all these wonderful pictures of the kids to share...but it'll have to wait for another night.