Where to Begin?

Our home now consists of a broken arm, teeth coming in, croup and crankiness in general.  What a flippin’ week!

Monday night, I was dead-to-the-world tired and apparently, Skip brought Nate into me and I reached out for him with my eyes open (so says Skip) and took him.  Well I don’t remember any of that (I’ve been known to have phone conversations in my sleep, so eyes open doesn’t really mean anything), but I do remember being woken up by Nate screaming after he fell out of our bed and onto the floor.

I scooped him up and tried to offer him the magic booby, but he wouldn’t take it.  Then Ace woke up (he sleeps in a pack n play in our room these days) and started screaming.  Skip can’t settle Ace when he has a fit, so he took Nate and I settled Ace.  Well, I nursed him, then cut him off which really set him into pissed off mode.

I tried to put Ace in the pack n play, but he was having a typical screaming, flailing, A-Man fit and I was trying to force a binky on him and finally said, “I don’t give a shit about you right now!” — NOT my proudest moment.  You see, Ace has fits on a daily basis (he’s getting evaluated for a Sensory Integration disorder next week, I’ll have to post about that some time) and I was really worried about Nate and just wanted to be with Nate.  Poor Ace.

I took Nate from Skip and nursed him (Nate, not Skip!), then put him in his bed and laid next to him for a while to be sure he was ok.  Then I went back to our room and scooped up A-Man and apologized to him… I felt horrible for what I had said earlier.

Nate woke up a few hours later with a fever (he’s teething and had a touch of a cold, so no big surprise about the fever), but he didn’t want to nurse again.  I took him downstairs and sat in the recliner with him, thinking he was too congested to sleep/nurse.

In the morning, he was just laying on the floor — not crawling or playing.  I still assumed it was teeth/cold/fever so I gave him a binkie and a blanket and he dozed off in the middle of the living room floor.

When he woke up again, he went to crawl but fell and cried.  I settled him down and he seemed content to just lay on the floor snuggled in his favorite blankie.

After a couple of hours, though, I realized he had yet to crawl at all.  I had the phone, which lights up when it’s on and he LOVES, and I turned the light on and set it down.  He immediately went for it, but when he got on his hands and knees, he collapsed and cried.  I knew then that I needed to get his arm checked.

I wrangled up the kids and called the doctor on my way to the ER.  They said they could see me if I went there right away, so I dropped Calista off at work with Skip and took Ace and Nate with me to Dr. W’s.

Nate cried when Dr. W was putting pressure on his lower arm, so we were sent off to X-Ray.  Nate SCREAMED when they had to hold his arm down for the X-Rays.  :(

The X-Ray showed two hairline fractures, one in the lower right ulna and one in the lower right radius.  We were sent off to the Orthopedic Surgeon and there Nate got a pseudo-cast.  It’s a fiberglass “half cast” held on with an ACE bandage.  The doctor said babies heal fast (10-20 days) and with all of the effort required to put a cast on them, it’s not worth it.  So the half-cast is what he has now.

The first day he just hated it, but by the second day, he figured out how to army crawl and pull himself up to standing.  His teeth are still bothering him and he sure is snotty right now with a cold, but the cast isn’t slowing him down.  :)

Wednesday night, though, Ace started with this awful sound he was making when inhaling while crying.  He (and Nate) were up all night between the two of them.  Last night, Ace was making that awful sound again and had a fever of 103.7.  I called the nurse on call at 12:30 am who said it sounded like croup and so I took Ace into the bathroom with shower running and sat there for 20 minutes to try to clear his airways.

We were back off to the pediatrician this morning and Nate checked out as just having a cold, but Ace has croup and was given a dose of steroids to help open his lungs up.  Poor boys!!!

Calista also has a cough/cold, so the three of them are just a mess.  I spent the day listening to coughing, crying and lots of whining.  Ace follows me around and literally hangs off of my pant leg (and freaks out if I pull him off of my leg to — godness forbid — go to the bathroom!) and Nate screams like nobody’s business if I walk past and dare to not pick him up and take him with me!  It’s been exhausting.

They are both sound asleep at the moment, each with a vaporizer near their bed, so hopefully they will give us a little sleep tonight, too.  I’m not counting on it, though.