Life updates July 24-31

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Sunday the 25th Bug was fine all day until mid afternoon and suddenly he came running up to me whimpering and upchucked curdled milk at my feet. Hubby put him in the tub while I cleaned up. Bug was acting pretty chipper considering he felt like a hot oven. He got cranky at bedtime. I kept alternating motrin and tylenol all night long. He was just burning up. Other than the fever that began with spitting up his milk, he acted fine over the next few days. I was SUPPOSED to have a prenatal appointment, since I was on every other week now, on Monday, but not knowing what the deal was with my son and his strange fevers I thought it best to reschedule. The fever was lower Monday afternoon but still there. He was just as chipper and sweet as he always is. No more puking. He ate well once the fever dropped from scalding down to just hot. I had lost one of our ear thermometers (or rather a toddler got ahold of it and it's now MIA) and the other one's battery is dead and I misplaced the replacement battery somewhere so I was just going by feel. When you touch someone and their skin feels like when you are ironing a shirt and touch the fabric just as you lift the iron and the fabric is so hot it feels like it's burning your hand... yeah that's a good sign the person has a fever. Poor little fellow. But the tylenol / motrin kept it tolerable through Sunday night and then Monday it stayed moderate on it's own until bedtime, when I had to start up the meds again.

Meanwhile hubby was out of town for a few days for work in replacement of the previous time when he didn't have to go after all at the last minute. Our son seems to pick Daddy going out of town to have his fever spells or something! What this meant was that one super tired preggo mama was once again living off a couple too many sodas a day to be able to take care of the kids. Not good for my weight gain or my contractions or any other health aspect at all of course, but necessary for survival.

Tuesday my dishwasher decided to spew water all over my kitchen floor. Thankfully the kids and I were standing right there and as I'm at the stove I hear two little voices exclaiming, "Uh-oh!" and "Oooh no!" clueing me in immediately to the problem before it became a two-towel operation to clean up. I hadn't done dishes for a couple days so I really needed them done, of course. Isn't that the way it goes? I was too tired to play dishwasher repairwoman that night and hubby was coming home late the same night so I wound up handwashing dishes until he could look at it. Hand washing dishes stinks no matter who you are but I happen to have an extra reason that it stinks and that is that I have eczema and dish soap sets off a pretty bad reaction. I get blisters all over my hands, wrists, between my fingers... and the blisters swell up full of fluid and itch like mad, then burst and bleed and scab. Quite a bad reaction to dish soap. Therefore as much as hand washing dishes is the pits anyway, it is even moreso when one is literally allergic to it. When hubby finally had the chance to take a look at the dishwasher for me it was of course suddenly magically fine. *sigh* go figure. It's been fine ever since too. Who knows what it's issue was that day. I sure don't. I'm just thankful that it didn't require an expensive part or repairman to fix and hope it doesn't decide to get dishwasher PMS on me again anytime soon!

Wednesday the 28th I was awakened to contractions at 5am and they hurt too bad to fall back to sleep. They went on that way pretty much until about 2:00 in the afternoon. Chicklet got her hair caught on the doorplate or whatever you call that metal piece that is around the hole where the doorknob latch goes into in the door frame so the door stays closed. She wanted me to braid her hair so it wouldn't get caught on anything else and it's really hard to be still and french braid a wiggley distracted toddler's hair while in pain from contractions. I obviously didn't do a good enough job of it either because the middle part was undone and flying around loose again within an hour. *sigh* This was so not my week so far. I decided things were going to be better because my husband was home from his business trip! Hooray! So I got the kids and myself ready to go and went to the farmer's market and Dollar Tree and we got Daddy some birthday balloons and hats for his birthday Friday. Bug's fever that seemed to show up every evening around bedtime didn't show up this time. He was still up a few times of course, giving me plenty of opportunities to check on him. The fever did not come back. I had tried to look in his mouth one morning this week but he wouldn't let me, telling me my finger was "icky" so I instead tickled him and then tried to look in while he was laughing. I think there's a half-in molar back there from what I could see so that could explain the random fevers and throwing up, especially since he didn't have any other symptoms and nobody else in the house had so much as a sniffle. So we decided to chalk it up to teething.

Thursday I worked on getting those dishes all caught up. I had only been handwashing barely enough to use- I'm sure you can imagine why. So my sink and counter were full of smelly dishes and I went to work getting them all caught up again after we established that the dishwasher was not actually broken, just having a momentary fit or something...? I had lots to do the following day- my husband's birthday! :) Oh and this is the day I discovered my first new stretch mark for this pregnancy. I didn't think there was room for a new one on there- my belly looks about like a giant raisin or something for all the marks. But alas there it was, a brand new red one. Or rather an old one that was lengthening again. So I got out the lotions and oils and decided I need to remember to grease my belly daily- much to the kids' delight. They think rubbing in the lotion is just too much fun and were stoked when I resolved to make it a daily habit. And it is even more fun when the belly pushes back at them. Very super cute! I don't know if they really "get" that the pushing back was a real live baby, their sister, growing inside me. I think that Chicklet understands that there is a baby in there (she sure tells everyone we meet about it so proudly!) but I don't know if she connects the movements with the baby or if she thinks we're pretending we feel the baby. Either way the tots adore massaging lotion on my raisin-belly and babygirl loves it when they do too. She wakes up and pushes her feet against their hands like, "okay now massage my other foot..." :) It's cute overload for me!

Friday my hubby had taken off work. I got up and made everyone bacon and eggs for breakfast. Then I made yogurt. Then I made my hubby's favorite meal and Chicklet helped me make the meal and bake the cake and make the pudding for it. We had supper and our little family-only birthday party with balloons and hats and everyone had a wonderful time! :) After the kids went to bed hubby and I made cookie dough together to freeze which was really fun!

Saturday morning I went to the Farmers' Market with a friend and then we went for a long drive and talked and it was really nice. Bug went home to take a nap with Daddy, and Chicklet stayed with us because my friend's son is her age and she loves playing with him. For some reason they got in an argument over something in the back seat though and were not as friendly as usual. Bummer...
When we parted ways and I got ready for a date with my husband! :D We went to dinner and a movie and a wonderful friend watched the kids for us and gave us a gift card for the dinner. What a wonderful fun time we had! Probably the last chance for a while considering the baby on the way. I wouldn't want to leave a nurseling for as long as we were gone for our date for sure. That precious nursing bond is so sweet and special! I can't wait! I'm not going to want to put her down for a few months at least I'm sure. ;)