Daddyman @ Home

A week ago Saturday: Little Blue comes down with a runny nose and a cough. No biggie, he's got Dad's immune system. We send him to school with some cough medicine in him because he has no fever. Blue feels sad for Little Blue because he has to bark at him time and time again not to touch or play with the girls to avoid sharing germs.

A week ago Tuesday: Baby Purple starts to sniffle. By the end of the day she looses interest in eating and has a low grade fever. Pink and Blue smell like sour milk and mucus with the amount of spit up.

A week ago Wednesday: Pink takes Baby Purple to see the doc, Blue stays home with Blue and Baby Teal. Doctor confirms low grade RSV for Purple. Basically a cold in which there is no medicine for because the kids are so young. We get out the nose bulb, suck her dry as best we can before feeding. We also get an antibiotic for her ear infection. Doc says to bring Purple back Friday if she isn't improving.

Friday: Purple is on the mend, she's eating more and not fussing as much. Baby Teal starts to show symptoms

Sunday: Baby Teal's fontanelle (the seam where her skull is starting to fuse together) is swollen and she has a fever. After a call to ask a nurse, Pink takes Teal to the emergency room at children's mercy. After a long wait, they put tubes through her nose and suck out all the mucus.

Monday: We visit the doc with both girls, they confirm Purple is getting better and switch meds for her ear infection. Once again, they suck out Teal's nose. Blue is thankful Chicken Little was playing in the waiting area. :) We're told in Teal's case, it is worse than Purples. Several times and hour we're told to count how many times in a minute she breathes. Under 40 is okay, she's getting enough oxygen and not working hard to get it. More than that we call the doc.

Monday night: Baby Teal sets a distance record for our children...spitup clearing 3 feet. She spat up from inside her bassinet to the side of our bed. Amazingly, Blue didn't get any on him and we got everything cleaned up. She doesn't fall asleep till 2pm, and Pink and I both wake up up every time she coughs.

Tuesday morning: We count her breathing in the morning and it's in the middle 40 to 50 range. We call the doc, and several minutes later, Pink and Teal are off to Children's Mercy. I assume the worst and get myself settled down for a nap, assuming I'd be there all night if need be. Pink calls about 2 hours later and says she's coming home. They did the tube thing and sucked out a TON of mucus out of her throat. Doctor said between last night and this morning, she's over the worst of it.

Tuesday night, on my way home from work, I get news that Teal had 4oz of formula (6oz was the presickness amount) with very little spitup. On the road to recovery.

The worst part about this whole ordeal is keeping calm that they're not eating as much as they should and freaking out that they could loose too much weight or develop something more serious. There for a while on Doc's orders we just ditched formula and went straight to Pedialyte (or the CVS equivalent) just to make sure they were not getting dehydrated.

So, tomorrow we're going back to normal. Pink is heading back to work and I'll be doing the DaddyMan thing solo. It's been nice having company around though, despite the carpet cleaning and nearly daily loads of laundry.

Bummer about this for Little Blue is this is Spring Break week and I was planning on taking him to play several times, and with Easter this weekend, we'll stay at home because we don't want to spread germs. And I missed a luncheon and I'll miss a baby shower Thursday.

Might have to go dogging through the game chest and get some boardgames out. Little Blue is getting better at Connect Four. :)

Taken from the brain of DaddyMan at 8:11 PM