Thursday, January 12, 2006

What a Difference 12 Hours Can Make

It's true. The day before yesterday Abby was in a great mood. We had spaghetti for dinner which she usually refuses to eat, but that night she ate a helping of plain noodles and then asked for more with sauce. For a little while she was eating her noodles by sticking them into the straw of her juice box and then sucking it up with a nice mouthful of apple juice which is completely disgusting I agree, but at least she was eating it. She was a regular angel for the rest of the evening and went to bed nicely and fell asleep right away.

Fast forward to 3 something in the morning. Abby is awake and screaming/crying her face off. Mike jumps up out of bed right away to check on her. Which was unusual. Mike's good about getting up with her in the night if I actually wake him up and tell him to check on her. He doesn't often hear her on his own as quickly as I do. But there he was already across the hall when I barely had my eyes open. I figured she'd had a bad dream or had woken up and was disoriented by her new room. She's done that a couple of times since she moved. No such luck though. "She's been sick!" Mike called across the hall to me. Okay no problem, I haul myself out of bed and go to check on the situation. Yep there's tonight's dinner all over her bed. I try to make it downstairs to get clean sheets, jammies and supplies for cleaning up as fast as I can, but of course I'm having a contraction and have to make a pee stop. By the time I finally get back up there Mike pretty much has the mess cleaned up, the bed and Abby stripped. So I set about making the bed and getting Abby into new jammies. She tells me her tummy isn't upset, she feels fine and she puked because she was coughing. Everybody gets back into their beds. Mike goes right back to sleep and I lay there awake listening for Abby and the baby's awake now too so it's kicking up a storm. After about 20 minutes I just manage to drift off to sleep and Abby yells "I'm sick again!" So up we get and repeat what we did 20 minutes prior. Abby seems in good spirits and says again her tummy isn't upset and she wants to go back to bed. This time I thik she only made it about 10 minutes and she's calling for me again.

At this point I'm running of of clean bedding and jammies so it's time to head downstairs and make a plan for the day. I get Abby settled on the couch, which I carefully protect with a large quantity of bath towels first, and Mike starts the first of what promises to be many loads of laundry. It's barely 5 in the morning and Mike and I decide that I'll take the day off work and look after the poor sicky. Mike goes back to sleep for a little bit and I gather the necessary supplies.... a sick bowl, apple juice, cold water, baby wipes, pillows, blankets and a book for me. Abby was really great about drinking water, which was the only thing I could really get her to drink, even though she'd bring it back up in 10 minutes. Now that she's older she's stopped just opening her mouth and up chucking where ever she happens to be sitting (and my couch thanks her for that). I explained to her if she needed to be sick to use the bowl and she did, but I had to be holding the bowl for her while she used it. Poor little thing, she would cry before she got sick and during and after. Abby being Abby she had a specific way she wanted things done and holding on to the sick bowl was no exception. "Hold it straight. Hold it lower. Don't spill it on me. You have to keep it still." Between her crying and barking orders at me it's amazing she found the time to actually be sick.

And so my day continued. She needed me to be on the couch with her at all times. She cried if I went to the bathroom. She cried if I got her a glass of water. She cried if I emptied her bowl. She cried.... well I'm sure you get the picture. I set her up on one end of the couch and me on the other. That wouldn't last for long, before I knew it she had crawled up to my end and was sprawled across my legs or trying to lay on my tummy or trying to lay beside me. So I get her settled at my end and move down to the other end only to have her follow me a few minutes later. It was a good thing I had been the one to stay home, Mike would have gone crazy if he had been with her all day.

By the grace of God at about 1 pm she announced she was hungry and I let her have a bit of a kaiser roll. She managed to keep that and a glass of water down for 30 minutes. So I let her have more bread a bit at a time waiting to see if she could keep it down until she had eaten the entire thing. After that and some more water she settled on the couch for a nap. I let her sleep for about 3 hours and then woke her up. She had some more water and bread and still managed to keep it down. Mike by this point was home from work and falling asleep, complete with snoring, on the loveseat. I have to admit it really pissed me off since I was more than a little tired myself. So we ended up having a conversation that while I wouldn't call it an arguement, it certainly wasn't friendly. Abby was laying across my legs at this point and she raised her head and said to me, "Don't be mean to my Dadddy. He just loves me. He loves me all the time!" At that point we mutually decided we were both too tired to be speaking rationally to each other and we moved to separate floors.

Abby had made an amazing recovery, a lot quicker than I was expecting her too. She had a bit of Mike's dinner and some juice and in no time was jumping on the couch. When I quickly put an end to that activity she settled for walking around the house in her nightgown and glass slippers. Then she disappeared upstairs to help Mike put the crib together. We bought our crib used and that means no instructions so Mike had a bit of a struggle trying to figure out how it went together. The project didn't do much to improve his mood I must admit, but the crib is built and ready for junior's arrival. Abby was very excited about that development. She's already shown us how she's going to stand beside the crib and sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to the baby. I hope she stays this excited about the baby once it get here. Today Abby was back to normal. With no signs she had ever been sick at all.

I thought we had almost solved the baby name dilemma this afternoon with Mike and I both finally agreeing on Katherine, shortened to Kate and/or Katie. We were both happy with the name, both agreed we could live with it. I've always loved Kate/Katie. We thought about just naming the baby Kate, but it doesn't flow well with the middle names we've picked, Katherine works though. So I ask Abby tonight if she'd like to name the baby Katie and she loves it. Then Mike says I don't know, we already have a Katie on our lives. That would be his cousin Kate, but they're second cousins and we don't even spend that much time with her anymore. So I'll keep pushing the issue and see where it gets us.

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