Sick, sick, sick.

(Friday morning--Flanny and her sore elbow and Amos getting a pre-emptive breathing treatment.)

(During our nap on Sunday, he managed a smile.)

(Here, Flannery is "taking her temperature!)

Well the first week of school was cut short by a fever. That's right, Amos got a fever in the middle of the night Thursday night and had to stay home on Friday. Bummer.
But let's go back. Earlier on Thursday night, I was getting dinner ready, Nathan was headed home with other ingredients for dinner and the kids were playing in the couch cushions on the living room floor. They were laughing loudly and seemed to be having fun. I soon walked in to find Amos on top of the pile, trying to pull Flannery up, tugging on her left arm. Her laughter soon changed to crying and I new immediately what had happened. I picked her up and she was holding her left arm, saying, "ow, ow, ow, ow..." I could not console her. I looked at her arm, tried to move it to see if I could pop a wrist, shoulder or elbow back in, but it wasn't happening. So as soon as Nathan walked through the door, I told him what happened and that we should call a few doctor friends to see if they could help us. Nathan first called our good buddy, Mike Berend and left a message. He called another friend, who explained that Flannery probably had "Nurse's Elbow" and told him how to put it back. Nathan tried but it didn't work and of course, Flannery was screaming. Dr Mike soon called back and described the same manuever but with more detail and Nathan finally asked if he would mind stopping by to do it. He said yes, but was about 30 minutes away. While we waited, Flannery cried herself to sleep, poor thing. Mike soon arrived, Flannery woke up and resumed crying and with a quick twist of her forearm, Mike was able to get her elbow was back in place. But she was really sore and barely used it. She didn't even want to hold the binky I was trying to give her. She babied it and was very fussy until we gave her Ibuprofen the next day. After that, she was back to normal!
So as you can imagine, Thursday night was busy, with a fussy Flannery and then with Amos waking up and feeling warm. When he woke up on Friday morning, he seemed to be doing better, but since he had had a fever that night, I didn't want to send him to school.
Later that day, he started to feel badly again, with the fever returning along with a headache. We decided to take him to the Minute Clinic at CVS because I suspected that he had strep throat again. This is how he acted before when he had it--a fever and headache that would come and go. We were right and he was put on meds. But it took awhile for him to get better. The fever stayed all weekend, until this morning. I decided that he probably also had a virus that was causing the fever and accompanying cough. Thankfully, the cough isn't in his chest, or too bad, but it's annoying enough. So I hope he sleeps tonight and can go back to school tomorrow.
Oh, and Nathan and I also got his cold and have been sick this weekend. We've taken turns off and on sleeping, napping and taking care of the kiddos. But it's been a difficult weekend. Amos is no fun when he's sick, especially with a fever. He's burning up and wants to cuddle. We try to keep his shirt off to keep him cool and give him medicine when he gets really uncomfortable, but it's tough on him. He's pretty lethargic and whiny and doesn't eat very well. And our nights have not been restful--he's either ended up in our bed or Nathan has gone in to sleep with him in his little twin-sized bed to help him sleep better.
Getting through all of this has made me wonder if the whole year is going to be full of Amos getting sick every few weeks. I don't want him to, but as our friend, Jenny said, "At least it's just kindergarten--it's a great time for him to build up his immune system!" So seeing as how that is true, the only thing is that we'll have to get through Amos being sick, which again, is really not fun.
Any and all prayers for our little guy are appreciated as we get through the year. We'll just have to take it a day at a time, I suppose!

(On the mend)