the head cold from hell
we are on bina head cold day 12. david caught it five days after her, and i caught it six days after her. so we are all sick. i took bina to the doctor finally yesterday to find out that she does in fact have an ear infection in addition to the symptoms i've been observing. so we started her on antibiotics and are hopefully on the mend. good thing because i am about to LOSE MY MIND. sick babes are no joke. and we had the stomach bug two weeks ago so i am totally over all the sickness. don't come to my house. it is a germ-fest. i need to fumigate with lysol.
this all started with a 103.3 fever a week ago friday. fever lasted for about two days, and then she started a clear runny nose. then the clear became yellow. and then a barky cough started. the barky cough became a goopy cough. the congestion and cough has been waking her up in the night and it's an hour or more ordeal to get her back to sleep. last night was the first night she's slept through the night since this started so praise god for that. there is hope after all.
i go back and forth between compassion and patience and utterly losing my mind. it has been 12 days. i'm so ready to get out of the house again and go play (aka interact with other adults at our normally scheduled activities that we have had to forego). it's a really good thing bina is so darn cute. so very darn cute. even when her face is all wet with tears, snot, and slobber. even when she walks around the house yelling angry sounds and dumping all the laundry on the floor as i try to unload groceries. and then jake lays down on the pile of laundry. clean laundry, mind you. now once again covered in slobber, snot, and dog hair. my new constant accessories. well, the slobber and dog hair aren't new. did i mention she's also wanting to nurse with the frequency of a newborn? so over nursing right now. little miss chomp chomp. and if it made this cold pass quickly i would be thankful. but it hasn't. DAY 12.
one thing i've noticed is that i'm not getting all weepy and full of despair about the coming winter and inevitably more sickness and my role as keeper of the germ-fest. that is good. progress. i do find myself getting annoyed and short with bina. that i need to work on. it's been a rough week and a half and sleep deprivation always makes it more fun. but somehow i need to manage to continue to be the adult in this situation. even when i want to fall on the ground and cry and slobber and snot all over the laundry like bina, frustrated with the current state of the world. because bina is the babe, and i am the grown up. i can't expect her to act like a grown up. but i need to. i need to set that example for her. so, god help me. i need that compassion and patience and grace even when i don't feel like extending it.
one of my favorite things is smiling at bina from the trunk as i'm unloading groceries and seeing her erupt into a big bina smile back as she sits oh so patiently in her rear facing carseat. i absolutely love it. makes me just want to kiss her sweet cheeks and squeeze her adorable little baby body. so when we're rushing through meijer and she's losing it and wriggling her way out of the grocery cart seat, turning around and getting stuck and losing it some more...
then being a pain in the rear at checkout grabbing everything her little hands can reach and throwing it on the floor... i need to think about that moment when we get home and i get out to unload groceries and see that smile i love so much. and then manage to get the munchkin safely back in that cart seat that never seems to contain her for long. time to get back to using the carrier i guess!
over the weekend we raked leaves. well, david raked leaves and i kind of raked leaves and bina walked into the piles and then dove and laid in them. i adore her curiosity. it's also one of the things that is driving me up a wall now that she can reach higher than before (of course, the week she's a snotty fussy mess is also the week she figures out how to reach everything i thought was out of reach). the kid loves being outside. she loves playing with the gate to our backyard. she loves wandering. she loves attacking the dogs. she loves getting into places she shouldn't get into. she doesn't so much love when i have to stop her. of course. oh that curious babe.
on halloween we dressed her up in her squirrel costume and went on a family walk with her and the dogs. then we stopped by our neighbors houses to say hi and show off her costume. i spent $30 on the stupid thing. someone was going to see it! one set of neighbors asked if i made it. haha. are you saying it doesn't look like a $30 costumes?!?! oh well. it was adorable. we got some photos. the squirrel costume will go down in history. and she didn't even fight us much to wear it. victory.
halloween morning was our trip to the pediatrician. we had minion nurses and a harry potter doctor. all very cute. after finding out bina had an ear infection, i immediately felt a sense of guilt. like i should have taken her in sooner. bad mom! sigh. it's so hard with littles and sickness. i don't want to take bina to the doctor if it's not necessary, if they're just going to say "yes she has a cold and wait it out." that's what i was expecting and is why i held off for so long. that's what happened back when she had rsv early this year. alas, that wasn't the case this time. the important thing is we caught it and now she's on her antibiotics. which hopefully means relief is coming for all.
so whether we face a winter swapping colds every other week or not, it's all going to be ok. it's that season. of littles and colds. after this last week and a half i am definitely tempted to avoid interaction with other children to keep bina well. but this is life. i can't keep us cooped up forever! we will go out. we will get sick. and we will press on. because if she's not sick now, it will be when she goes to kindergarten. or preschool. or whatever. germs are EVERYWHERE. but, god is sovereign. so we will be ok, whatever may come. i may just need to pray quite a bit more. for my sanity. and my sanctification.
time to get back to my lysol raid on the germs.
