Sick again...

So, I took the girls to the doctor today.  I don't typically do this unless I think they are really sick and might need antibiotics, etc.  I will start with the last couple of days leading up to today so that you can understand why I decided this warranted a doctor's visit.  

Bethany had a runny nose for about two days and had started acting like she didn't feel well yesterday.  Emily got the runny nose yesterday, but acted like she was fine.  Fast forward to yesterday evening when it all REALLY got crazy.  The girls took a LONG nap, about 3 1/2 hours and Bethany felt really hot to me when I picked her up from her nap (not to mention her pink flushed cheeks).  Checked their temps and Bethany was running 103 at 5:00 in the evening.  Emily is only at 100.  So I am thinking... oh boy, this is going to be a long night.  Give Bethany Tylenol and call the doctor's office.  I am advised to rotate Tylenol and Motrin every three hours and to watch her fever through the night.  Check her again before bed and she is still at 102.4 with Tylenol, give her (and Emily) Motrin and pray that we don't have to visit Urgent Care in the middle of the night.  Set the alarm for every three hours and get up to give her Tylenol or Motrin.  Her fever stays high, but does not get any higher than it was.  This was done by feeling her forehead, I thought it was just cruel to take her temp in the middle of the night unless I noticed a change.  We take it rectally and I wouldn't want someone to wake me up that way if I felt that bad.  So, not that bad right?  Oh, it gets better.

I checked Emily each time I went in to give Bethany medicine, just in case her temp. went up as well.  She was fine until 6:00a.m.  John got up that time (to give me a break, God bless him) and immediately came back in our room to inform me that Emily had vomited and it was all over her, all in her bed, on her blanket, on Pooh, etc.  So much for a little extra sleep.  I should mention that I also wasn't feeling well when we went to bed last night.  I had the runny nose and the scratchy throat that wouldn't let me sleep anyway.  Looking back I think I should have just done an "all nighter" and stayed up to watch movies or something instead of trying to sleep in 30 minute intervals.  So we get her cleaned back up, she throws up one more time before we put her back down to sleep and we both go back to bed exhausted to try to get even a few more minutes.  

Well, John goes to work and gets us an appointment for 10:30a.m. and I let the girls sleep as long as they will.  At 9:00a.m. I go into their room only to see that Emily has vomited everywhere again.  I strip her down and put her in the bathroom to wait for Bethany and I.  Well, Emily tee-tee's in the bathroom floor while I am getting Bethany undressed.  Clean that up (all the while talking about how tee-tee goes in the potty since we are beginning to start potty training) and put them in the bathtub.  I am excited because I have clean babies to take to the doctor and we are still on schedule.  I grab a towel and reach to let the water out only to realize that Emily has pooped in the water.  I give up... will it ever end?  Again, talk about how poo-poo goes in the potty, not in the bathtub.  Ok, get everyone dressed and get the diaper bag ready with breakfast snacks, sippy cups, blankies (clean vomit off of the least nasty blanket of Emily's so that she has a blankie to take with us) tissues, extra clothes, diapers, Tylenol/Motrin, and wipes.  Forgot pacifiers, but gave up at 10:25 trying to find anything else.  Get jackets and hats on the girls and off we go.

Get to the doctor's office and they got us in almost immediately.  I am thinking this is awesome, the day is actually shaping up to get better.  Get temps taken, both are still running fever.  Bethany gives us the 2-year-old screaming tantrum when we try to weigh her while I try to shrink as small as I can get and want to pretend like she belongs to someone else for the moment.  Ok, that is over with, in the room to wait.  No big deal, the girls have snacks and cups and can get out of the stroller to run around.  All is good until Emily looks at me, turns red in the face and says "bo bo?"  Then the most horrible gurgling sound came from the depths of her belly and out her rear end.  It kept going and going and going.  I didn't know exactly what to do.  I knew she had to be approaching diaper breach, but I couldn't try to change her yet because she was still going.  Finally it was over.  I VERY gently laid her back on the table and tried to carefully change her diaper.  I was right, we had a breach through the onesie and needed a new shirt, but it was not as bad as I had thought until I opened the diaper.  All I can say is that I am now a STRONG supporter of Pampers.  Someone who works there knows what they are doing.  Maybe they actually have kids themselves because this diaper worked a miracle today.  

I manage to get the diaper off without making a super mess, but now the room smells so bad that I can hardly sit in there without gagging uncontrollably.  Kids are amazing, they don't even care.  Perhaps it is because they have a river of snot running out their noses, but nonetheless... it didn't bother them at all.  Thankfully the nurse heard me talking about how stinky it was (or maybe they could smell it out in the hall when they walked by), but she brought me a bag to put it in and then sprayed the room with something that actually worked to take away the smell.  

After all this, the doctor comes in and looks at the girls and orders a Flu test.  He is almost positive that is what they have.  More waiting... test comes back negative.  Next is a Strep test.  Negative again.  Now... I love our doctor, but no mother after all that has happened in the last 16 hours wants to hear... "well, if it is not the Flu or Strep, the only thing it can be is a cold and it will just have to take it's course."  I really felt like giving the girls to him and saying "then you take them home with you and give them back to me when they are well."  So, we leave the office with no meds and the prospect of about another week of this.  I still have to go home and clean the rest of the poop out of the tub and change another set of Emily's sheets.  YUCK!!  So that is it guys.  The story of my day.             

What a year already!!

Obviously I have NOT kept up with my blogging.  Hopefully with this being a new year, I will get a little better.  As most of you know, we had a loss in our family recently.  We lost the girls' baby brother Michael John at 17 weeks and 6 days into my pregnancy.  We are very sad and are trying to figure out how to help the girls to understand what is going on.  Maybe someday they will understand how he is in Heaven watching over them, but for now they just know something is different with Mommy and Daddy.

The girls are starting to look less like babies and more like little girls now.  I love watching them grow up, but I wish time would move just a little slower!  It seems like it was just a few months ago when they were tiny little babies and now they are beginning to be independent and showing much more of  their own little personalities.  Bethany is ALWAYS busy (unless she is sleeping or eating).  She is my "go" baby (Imagine the Energizer bunny with her face on it!).  Emily is much more laid back.  She likes to sit and read or play with one toy for a little while.  They are both starting to say lots more words now.  I feel like I was gone for a week and I came back home to new kids.  They are both putting together two and three words at a time now.  Our favorite of course is "My Mommy" and "My Daddy," although "Elmo all done?" while pointing at the TV almost always trumps anything else.

We got them their very own "beep beep" while we were visiting Gramma and Papa because they kept trying to take everyone else's phone or cell phone away to try to talk.  They are both too cute because they put the phone to their ear and say "hi" with a great Texas hick accent, but then just get quiet and breath into the phone like Darth Vader.  The only way that we can get them to talk is to ask them questions that we know they will answer... What does the bunny do?  What does the horse say?  Where is Sissy?  My personal favorite for the moment is the horse because of the facial expression it takes to make the sound.  

They have learned to "love, love" each other.  I think we say lots of things in twice like that after reviewing our "baby" vocabulary.  We change "bo bos," bunnies go "hop hop," we get into our "eat eat" chairs, we give "pat pats," etc.  Oh well, I think I am losing brain cells and then re-growing them on a daily basis so that makes sense.

The girls love to dance and we have got some really cute videos of their dancing techniques which consist of bobbing up and down with lots of "round and rounds."  Although, one of the funniest things that they do is "happy feet," which looks very much like the movie or something out of "Flashdance."  They are also very proficient at "all fall down" which is pretty comical as well.  

Ok guys, that is all I have for today.  I want to save some for the next couple of posts that I will continue to try to do MUCH more often than I have been.  For now, I better get back in their room to see what they are into.