More Illness...Does it ever end?

I was feeling a bit defeated when Ellie, Lucas and I all woke up last Thursday completely congested and feeling cruddy after all being healthy for just a handful of days. But I didn't have much time to wallow in self-pity because it was Presidents Day weekend which meant our annual visit from Heidi and Riley! They arrived on Friday night and stayed until Monday morning and, as usual, we had a wonderful time. The girls played pretty well together - it would have been much better, though, had Elise not turned into a complete whiny mess several times throughout the weekend. I am hoping that it was just because she wasn't feeling well, but she wasn't all that great with sharing (she went through periods of wanting to play with everything that Riley was ever touching) and she was sent to time-out several times for her meltdowns and we had to have several talks about being a good hostess. In the past few months, she has gotten really great with sharing, asking for things politely and getting over things pretty quickly when she doesn't get her way, so it was particularly frustrating that she suddenly regressed with all of these behaviors. However, she wasn't whiny the WHOLE time (she got much better as the weekend progressed) and she did have lots of fun playing with Riley, and we had lots of fun catching up with Heidi!

(Warning: extremely gross stuff ahead! Read at your own risk!) On Monday morning, Ellie woke up crying and complaining of a stomach ache. While I was trying to figure out what was wrong, she put her hand to her mouth and threw up a little bit of chunky nastiness into her hand. She looked at it and screamed (she doesn't like "gross" things like dirt or snow or marker or, I guess now we know, throw up, to be on her hands ever) so she shook her hand so that the grossness was flung around the room, but no longer on her hand. Ah, the joys of parenthood. I quickly rushed her to the bathroom where she threw up a little bit more, but this time it was all nicely contained in the toilet. She said her tummy hurt pretty much all day long and barely ate a thing (which is very strange for our little one who usually chows down like a 15 year old boy) but she still played and ran around seemingly unfazed by the stomach issues for the rest of the day. Then that night Marty started feeling sick and he too began throwing up (but much more violently than Elise and for a lot longer).

Tuesday evening, Lucas jumped on the Puke Train, while Elise took a ride on the Diarrhea Express. Somehow I came away from this stomach bug ordeal unscathed. How I managed that, I have no idea. But during all the craziness on Tuesday and Wednesday, Marty was still not feeling that well and Lucas, Ellie and I were also still congested from our colds. Thank goodness for my parents, who are complete saints because they still come up and help out so much even though they catch every single thing the kids ever get. Thank you guys so much for once again putting yourself in harms way to help out with the illness insanity that is our lives!!

This has been the craziest winter ever! I have never seen so much illness in one house in all my life. And we all got flu shots! Anyway, I was really proud of Ellie with the diarrhea thing because it was the first time she's had something like that since she's been potty trained. It had major disaster written all over it, but she dealt with it like and champ and didn't have any accidents (miracle of miracles!). By Friday, she was still having some tummy troubles and is still barely eating anything, but seems to be in decent spirits. After Luke's vomiting issues on Tuesday (which may or may not have been related to a stomach bug), he seems pretty much in the clear. He is still completely congested, of course, and coughing like crazy but at this point I think he just expects it so it doesn't seem to bother him in the least. The doctor said that complications like severe coughing from the bronchilitis usually lasts 6-8 weeks! So it doesn't seem like we will have complete health in our future any time soon.

Quick Health Update: I took Lucas to the doctor on Thursday for his 4 month (!!) check up and he seems to be doing well (other than the congestion and coughing of course). He's now 14lbs 110z (25th percentile) and 24 inches long (25th percentile) and his head circumference is 16 1/2 inches (25th percentile). He is nothing if not consistent! Also while we were at the doctors office, I laid him on his belly on the table so that he could look at himself in the mirror and he rolled over from his belly to back for the first time! He is a really mellow baby and doesn't seem to have much interest in active things like rolling over so it was pretty exciting stuff. While he has been laughing out loud for a few weeks now, in the past two weeks he's been laughing a lot more and a lot more often. Last week Marty and Ellie were playing soccer in the backyard and he was watching them laughing hysterically for about 20 minutes straight (apparently soccer is very funny)! Hopefully I'll catch it on video next time he gets the giggles because it's hilarious.

We have a bunch of fun things planned for this weekend, so cross your fingers for us that none of the many illnesses everyone is suffering from get in the way!