Unpredictable

Life with kids is totally unpredictable. Case in point:

Yesterday (Tuesday) we had the most beautiful morning. Both babies slept thru the entire night until we woke them up at 7 am (something that, between teething & the upset of the move, hadn't happened in about a month!). We had a wonderful, fun morning. They slept on our morning walk. We played some more, had a wonderful lunch, and they went down for their naps like angels. It was a wonderful day, and I couldn't think of anything that could happen to make it otherwise.

Then they both woke up from their naps with stuffy noses. Strange. But I had been battling allergies, and I figured there might have been something bothering them from our walk. The afternoon kept going, and they were playing funny...Allie would stop and rub her head on the floor, and Ryan kept coming over and leaning on me. The allergies? Then, at dinner, I gave them one of their favorite meals and neither would eat a bite. I checked their temperatures and, sure enough, they both had fevers.

The rest of the evening I watched them go downhill - getting more lethargic and cranky. We put them to bed early (I checked and their fevers had gone down some by bedtime), and I prepared myself for a night of interrupted sleep.

I should have prepared myself for no sleep! By 9, Allie was awake with a soaring fever. More medicine, some rocking, she couldn't fall back asleep. I took her pjs off (our house felt surprisingly warm) and we cuddled on the couch and watched America's Funniest Videos (I mention this because she started laughing at the videos, at the appropriate moment, without the audience laughing first! My baby girl has a sense of humor! One that prevails over sickness!). At 10:45 I passed Allie to Lucas and went in to check on Ryan. He was laying in the middle of his crib, staring, and looking miserable. His fever was also back. Medicine, bottles (to help replenish fluids), bedtime routine...we laid them down and both stayed quiet (so I assumed they slept).

The rest of the night, at least one of them would wake up every hour or so. The night was filled with thermometers (Our highest fever was 103.2, our lowest 100.7), medicine, bottles (I was so worried about dehydration), and exploding diapers (I officially hate Pampers' new Baby Dry system - that didn't even last 8 hours before exploding in Allie's pjs and requiring a desperate attempt at cleaning up the millions of nasty crystals that covered her body at 2 am. I might hate Pampers too. Is it too late to use cloth diapers? At least they don't have exploding crystals!), and Baby Einstein (the only way I could keep them still while taking their temperature).

I was so happy to see morning (although my cumulative sleep was somewhere under 5 hours...so coffee is my friend today), but the fevers are persisting. The biggest bummer: Our health insurance doesn't start until tomorrow (April 1st), and we have a Pediatrician, but have not yet been to see her (because our insurance didn't start yet), so I feel a little like I don't have a doctor for them.

The cute things? Sick kiddos are cuddly kiddos, and I have enjoyed every cuddle (even in the middle of the night). Allie always feels better when she has her hand on your arm, and if you have to move it (say to scratch your nose), she holds her hand up and waits for you to put it down so she can hold you again. And Ryan kept saying "Buh-bul" (for Bumble, the bee from his book) whenever I would start the Baby Einstein movie. I was so confused until I realized he said it whenever he saw the caterpillar! Which does look like Bumble! He got so excited when I understood what he meant that he repeated "Buh-bul, buh-bul" for about 15 minutes while clapping his hands :) My sweet babies.