Slightly was an over statement...

Tuesday, March 20

Per the title, in regards to the ending of my first post, slightly was definitely an over statement. I literally slept half an hour this morning. So far, I am good.
So, it is a new day, a new blog post and time to get going...however, I am not sure that I won't fall asleep mid sentence or while standing up. Sorry Boss, I can't make any promises. Please keep in mind if you see me out and about today that no, I do not have black eyes, no Chuck does not beat me. I simply have under eye circles that could rival the dark side of the moon, or perhaps just a lemur.

Poor Garrison is so sick. The only way to keep him from crying was to sit up and hold him while he slept. If he cried, he would start with a coughing fit and cough until he would gag. Bless him!

While this year is only a drop in the bucket compared to how many times we went to see Dr. D or Dr. M last year with Lawson's 10 cases of strep and Garrison's multiple ear infections keeping us there constantly, I do feel like Dr. D and Dr. M are some of my closest friends because we see each other so regularly. Yesterday I even told Nurse June, who is the phone nurse at Partners In Pediatrics, that I felt like she and I were best friends we talked so regularly. I always call her and run the symptoms by her to see if Dr. D wants to see us. She usually does. I am starting to think they might be suspicious of me with how often I call and how often they are sick. I am expecting Child Services to show up at my door any day now.
To sum up the last 5 weeks, we have been to the pediatrician's office in Montgomery at least once every week. It started with a nasty case of congestion for both boys. Then Lawson had croup. The next week we went back for Lawson who had a sinus infection. After 5 days on the antibiotic, Lawson was worse. So two weeks ago we went back to see Dr. D. I loaded up both boys and off we went for what felt like the hundredth time. Dr. D looked at both boys. Both had bronchitis. So they each got script for Cefdinir, the really fun antibiotic that I will be sure to describe after this. So they both started taking it on Wednesday. By Saturday night, Garrison had only gotten worse. He started running a fever of 100-101, cried, coughed and gagged until 5 A.M. Sunday. The fever, cough, congestion, and trouble breathing all stuck around which landed us right back in the Dr.'s office Monday. Poor little GW had developed an  upper respiratory infection with croup. So now we have a steroid added to the mix.

NOTE: For those who do not want to read all about baby poop, dirty diapers, and all that is entailed by it, please skip ahead to the next post. Don't worry, I completely understand.
For those who have had children and know that you talk about poop way more than you ever used to on a regular basis, read on .
For those who haven't had children but aren't bothered by a little poop talk, thanks! For some reason babies and poop just go together....

WARNING: Lots of talk of baby poo below

OK, I gave you fair warning, go ahead........

Now, to tell you all about Cefdinir. While it is a wonderful antibiotic and one of the only ones that will actually touch Lawson's illnesses, it is sort of a tool of the devil.
It absolutely causes the most poop-splosions, blow outs and tummy aches of any antibiotic my kids have taken. However, that is not all it does. It also causes their poop to be a nice reddish/maroon/fuchsia color. If I did not have prior warning from the Doc before starting it, I am almost certain I would have taken Lawson to the ER in a panic. Something would have to be very wrong with one's digestive system for their poo-poo to be this color naturally.
So, not only do we have lovely up-the-back, down-the-legs poop-splosions from Garrison but they are maroon and super hard to clean up.

While on this subject, I may as well tell y'all the little anecdote from Saturday night that I didn't include in the above. It is kind of detailed and gross. Don't say I didn't warn you....

Picture this: It is midnight and Lawson and Chuck have been asleep since 9 and 10, respectively. I am still up with all-nighter Garrison who is fussy and refuses to go to sleep and is ill in general (As a side note here, I am the world's worst at cry-it-out). So he and I are watching The Rock. Great educational, parenting, I know. Well, Garrison has a poopsplosion followed by two more back to back. Yikes! It was quite a mess.So I take him into his room to commence the clean up. It was quite worse than I expected. The inside of his PJ pants was covered as well as his legs. It was even all the way up to his belly  button. While I have his legs pulled up over his head he decides to start grabbing at the toys on his hutch above the changing station. He pulls down Mr. Monkey the wonderful smelling stuffed animal that the Henderson girls gave him at his first shower. Poor Mr. Monk (yes that is what we named him)  then did a nose dive straight into the dirty diaper. ( Sorry to have to tell you like this, Lindsey. Don't worry, I cleaned him up. He may never smell quite the same again, though :) Sigh. I grab Mr. Monk and throw him out of the way onto a towel. While I am trying to save poor Mr. Monk, Garrison has kicked his feet all into the dirty diaper and stuck his hands down in it. Ahhhhh! I frantically try to clean his hands before he has a chance to stick them in his mouth, on his face, or in his hair. Been there, done that, DO NOT want to go back. His feet are steadily kicking all around and  smearing it all over the changing pad.There is poop everywhere. On the changing pad, on the hutch, on the floor, on me, on him, on poor old Mr. Monk, who was just an innocent bystander in the ordeal. I grab the camera-end of the video monitor and start whisper-yelling "Chuck, Chuck" into it in hopes that he can come help save any thing/one else from being contaminated. I mean, there are still several special stuffed animals on the hutch in harm's way. 
No response. I wait another minute all the while using 110 wipes to try and keep GW from getting poop on his face or in his mouth... No steps coming down the hall.  I proceed to grab the camera and yell (no whisper in this one) into it. "Chuck, wake up!" Nothing, silence. So I stick my face into the camera part and somewhat quietly, so I don't wake Lawson, yell repeatedly and keep up the steady stream of wiping every surface. It was all in vain. Chuck never stirred. I ended up cleaning it all without any more casualties to war but I may have gone through half a box of wipes in the process.

In the end, Garrison and I were up until 5 o'clock Sunday morning. On the plus side, Chuck repaid me for the poop incident by making it possible for me to sleep until 10:30. Yay!

My cup definitely runneth over!
~Shana~