Thanksgiving weekend - part 1

The holiday in review . . . Hmm . . . Where to start? Well, since the boys didn't have school on Wednesday, our original plan was to run some errands that morning, then head out to my sisters that afternoon. Sounds easy enough, right?

On Friday when we went to the dr. for Connor's well-visit check, the dr. said he had some fluid in his ears, but since it was clear, he wasn't worried about it. Well, Tuesday evening, Connor was fussy and grumpy, and shivered all through dinner. I put him in the tub to help him get warm, and then wrapped him up with me while I ate. Pretty soon, he was hot - WAY hot. So, I unwrapped him, took his socks off and put a short sleeve shirt on him.

It wasn't enough. By the time we put the kids to bed, his fever was 103.2 (under the arm) and that's with Motrin in him. We gave him another bath (a lukewarm one) and I started to get scared. Normally when I put feverish kids in a lukewarm bath, they scream because the water feels cold. Connor didn't respond at all. (Did I mention I was really scared by this point? I did? Hmm . . .)

So, I called my sister - who has, more times than one, been our on-call nurse late at night. (Thank you Anne Marie!) She told us to give him some Tylenol (I had to send Brandon running to the store), and make sure he was getting lots of water. No onesie or socks, and a short sleeve shirt to sleep in. The cool water helped bring his fever down some, but by the time Brandon got home from the store 20 minutes later, it had spiked back up to 103+.

Out came the popsicles, and some Nilla Wafers, along with the Tylenol. I was ready to call Brandon's mom and have her come be with the other kids while we ran him to the hospital. But, the combo of the popsicle, the water, and the two medicines worked. He finally fell asleep around 11:30, and slept until about 6:30.

(As a side note here - it was SO funny to watch him eat an otter pop. I pushed part of it up out of the plastic and would stick it in his mouth. His little face would screw up as though he'd had something sour (the flavor was grape), but then he'd come right back for more. It was hilarious!)

He still felt awful, but his fever seemed to be lowering. We decided, though, to wait one more day before traveling to give him some time to get better. In retrospect, we should have just taken him to the dr. that day, but no . . . I guess we wanted to punish ourselves!