Happy Valentine's Day (or I could publish my laundry list)

Yeah. Groovy.

(references to bodily fluids of many sorts to follow. Skip, if you can't handle it.)

[UPDATED on Thursday]

Jess started out this morning by a truly magnificent poo. I'm talking shit of epic proportions. And serious diaper containment failure.

From the back of her knees all the way to her hair, she was covered in poo. I started to undress her and she reached behind her to see what was back there (and lo, it was baby shit) and then took her poo-besmeared hand and grabbed my shirt.

So.... I gave her a bath.

[Laundry count for the day: onesie (1), baby sweatpants (1), Mom's shirt (1)]

She seemed mostly ok, but somewhat cranky - inclined to watch TV and lay on the sofa rather than actually do anything. And quite mad when I decided an hour of TV was enough. After being pinched, howled at and bitten, I relented and let her watch TV until lunch. (Yes, my child is a brat when she doesn't feel well... )

She didn't seem very hungry - sort of picked at her food for a while. Ate most of her oranges, a bit of cheese and absolutely refused to have anything to do with her hotdog.

She went down for her nap easily enough and around three started crying fit to split the walls. I went in to get her...

and she was covered in vomit. She'd thrown up at least twice that I could tell - both under and over the comforter - and was positively drenched.

Very carefully, I picked her up and started to take her clothes off to wash her up. I got the pants off and was taking off the onesie when she threw up again. On herself. All over the changing table. On me.

[Laundry count for the day: onesie (2), baby sweat pants (2), Mom's shirt (2), Mom's pants (1), comforter (1), fitted sheet (1)]

I put her back in the tub, gave her another bath and called Kevin - at this point, I really needed some assistance.

Got her out of the bath and... she threw up. On the towel and herself. And me. And in my hair. Back into the tub.

[Laundry count for the day: onesie (2), baby sweat pants (2), Mom's shirt (3), Mom's pants (1), comforter (1), fitted sheet (1), towel (1)]

Got her out of the tub again and into a clean diaper. She walked around undressed for a while as I cleaned the changing table, the crib and the carpet. Kevin arrived home to help me and I set him to holding the baby and getting her dressed while I took a shower.

We got the laundry started and Jess was sitting in my lap for a while. She reached up, snatched my glasses off my face and... they broke. Not a screw came out, not the lenses popped out or anything easily fixable. But broke. I am now wearing glasses held together by a piece of tape.

Another twenty minutes or so passed. Jess had some juice and promptly threw it up onto herself and the carpet.

[Laundry count for the day: onesie (3), baby sweat pants (2), Mom's shirt (3), Mom's pants (1), comforter (1), fitted sheet (1), towel (1)]

Sent Kevin to the store for pedialyte and saltine crackers. He came back with the above items and a single rose.

"Happy Valentine's Day, sweetie," he said. "Sorry, the rose is burnt."

"Burnt?"

"Well, apparently they were shipped frozen, and one of the cashiers decided to thaw them out by putting them in the microwave."

"Burnt."

"Yep. Sorry about that."

---

It is now Thursday:

On Tuesday I called the doctor, since Jess still hadn't eaten anything that she hadn't thrown up, found out we'd been exposed to influenza while in the "sick" waiting room on Friday (so that Jess could have her ears checked, since it was three weeks after she'd had an ear infection... best place to get sick is at the doctor's)

The doctor instructed a *half-teaspoon* of pedialyte every ten minutes, increasing the amount slowly every hour that she didn't throw up, and starting back at the beginnging every time she did.

Tuesday, she threw up three times, but was still relatively in a good mood. (I wasn't, but hey, no one cares about that.)

[Laundry count: onesie (5), baby sweat pants (2), Mom's shirt (4), Mom's pants (2), comforter (1), fitted sheet (1), towel (2)]

Yesterday at noon, we were still on the half-teaspoon.

Jess slept almost all day yesterday in small increments of about eight minutes, sucked at the medicine dropped that I was using to administer her fluids, and threw up twice. The first time wasn't that big of a deal, as she hasn't been eating anything but pedialyte and that in tiny doses.

[Laundry count: onesie (6), baby sweat pants (2), Mom's shirt (4), Mom's pants (2), comforter (1), fitted sheet (1), towel (3)]

However...

Around 5pm yesterday she woke up from a nap and started screaming. She cried and cried and cried. She did not want to be held. She did NOT want any pedialyte. She did not want to NOT be held. She did not want to not have her pedialyte. It took me almost a half hour to figure it out, and I only did so when she forced her way off the sofa and snatched the piece of cheese I'd been eating off the computer desk and snarfed it in two bites.

She was hungry.

Ok....

We started with the piece of cheese and attempted some more Pedialyte (hey, other parents out there, does pedialyte make your baby smell weird or just mine?) which she Did Not Want at all.

It was with some trepidation that I gave her a few ounces of milk. Oh! Happy Baby! Joy and rapture! She slurked all the milk and then refused to release the cup, even once it was empty. I waited.

By seven-fifteen, she still hadn't thrown up, so I offered her a moderately small dinner. More milk, some pear bites, and a bit of oatmeal. She ate, she was happy. She went to bed.

At ten-thirty, she woke up screaming, threw up, and had another explosively unpleasant diaper.

[Laundry count: onesie (6), baby sweat pants (2), Mom's shirt (4), Mom's pants (2), comforter (2), fitted sheet (2), towel (3), stuffed lamb (1), sleeper (1)]

Posted by tisfan at February 14, 2005 06:33 PM